THE  LIFE  OF 
GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 


•Tl 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK   •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO   •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


PRESENTED  TO  THE  REV.  WILLIAM  BOOTH  WHILE  LABOURING  AS 
AN  EX^ANGELIST  IN  THE  METHODIST  NEW  CONNEXION,  BY  HIS 
FRIENDS  IN  SHEFFIELD,  IN  AFFECTIONATE  APPRECIATION  OF  HIS 
ARDUOUS,  ZEALOUS  AND  SUCCESSFUL  LABOURS  THERE  AND  IN 
OTHER  PARTS  OF  THE  COMMUNITY.  PRESENTED  NOVEMBER  26, 
1856.  AT  A  LARGE  MEETING  ASSEMBLED  IN  THE  TEMPERANCE 
HALL.   REV  H.  WATTS,  PRESIDENT  OF   CONFERENCE.   CHAIRMAN. 


THE  LIFE  OF 
GENERAL  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

THE  FOUNDER  OF 

THE   SALVATION  ARMY 

HAROLD  BEGBIE 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  I 


**Awake,  arise,  or  be  for  ever  fallen. " — Milton 


I13eto  gotb 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1920 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1920, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  March,  1920. 


PREFACE 

William  Booth  is  likely  to  remain  for  many  centuries  one 
of  the  most  signal  figures  in  human  history.  Therefore,  to 
paint  his  portrait  faithfully  for  the  eyes  of  those  who  come 
after  us  —  a  great  duty  and  a  severe  responsibility  —  has 
been  my  cardinal  consideration  in  preparing  these  pages. 
Only  when  circumstances  insisted  have  I  turned  from  my  at- 
tempt at  portraiture  to  examine  documents  which  will  one 
day  be  employed  by  the  historian  of  the  Salvation  Army. 

If  I  have  succeeded  in  my  work,  posterity  will  be  able 
to  feel  something  of  the  power  of  William  Booth's  person- 
ality, and  to  understand  how  it  was  his  spirit  could  touch  the 
human  heart  in  so  many  lands  and  in  almost  all  the  varied 
circumstances  of  mortal  life.  If  I  have  failed,  it  may  be 
possible,  I  hope,  because  of  the  sincerity  of  my  ambition,  for 
a  better  painter  in  another  age  to  discern  on  my  fading  can- 
vas at  least  two  or  three  colours  useful  for  a  more  living 
likeness. 

I  desire  to  add  that  in  mv  difficult  task  I  have  received 
valuable  help  from  Bramwell  Booth,  the  son  of  William,  and 
the  present  General  of  the  Salvation  Army.  But  for  good 
or  for  evil  the  book  is  mine,  and  I  alone  stand  at  the  judg- 
ment bar.  I  have  written  as  I  wished  to  write,  said  what  I 
wished  to  say,  and  the  book  is  my  honest  idea  of  the  truth. 

H.  B. 
London, 
2Sth  March,  1919. 


X  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH 

CHAPTER  Vn 
1849 

PAGE 

London  ;  the  Early  Victorians  .  .  .  •       91 

CHAPTER  Vni 

1849 

The  Call  to  Preach         .  .  .  .  '99 

CHAPTER  IX 

1850 

A  Crisis  in  Methodism     .  .  .  .  .     104 

CHAPTER  X 
1850-1851 

Tells  how  William   Booth  became  a  Pastor,  and 

introduces  the  Reader  to  Catherine  Mumford     107 

CHAPTER  XI 

1852 

The  Beginnings  of  a  Love  Story  .  .  .     123 

CHAPTER  XII 

1852 

Puritan  Love-Letters        .  .  .  .  '137 

CHAPTER  XIII 
1852-1853 

William  Booth  as  a  Successful  Evangelist,  Cath- 
erine Mumford  as  a  Guardian  Angel     .  .     145 

CHAPTER  XIV 
1853-1854 

William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford         .  .     183 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  XV 
1854-1855 

PAGE 

The  Evangelist  Troubled  about  Many  Things       .     203 

CHAPTER  XVI 
1855 

Marrlvge,   Honeymoon,  and  the  Theology  of  Re- 
vivalism .  .  .  .  .  .251 

CHAPTER  XVH 

1855-1856 

The  Happiness  of  a  Young  Married  Couple  .  .     262 

CHAPTER  XVHI 
1857-1861 

Which  Tells  of  a  Thorn  in  the  Flesh,  Sectarian 

Differences,  and  a  Break  with  Methodism     .     274 

CHAPTER  XIX 
1861-1864 
Wilderness     .......     292 

CHAPTER  XX 

1865 

The  Move  to  London         .....     308 

CHAPTER  XXI 

1865-1867 

A  Lady  Lodger's  Account  of  the  Booths'  Home  Life    315 

CHAPTER  XXII 

I 865-1 868 

The  First  London  Mission         ....     335 


xii  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH 

CHAPTER  XXni 
1878 

PAGE 

A  Summing  Up  in  Middle  Age    ....     348 

CHAPTER  XXIV 
1874-1878 

From  the  Christian  Mission  towards  the  Salvation 

Army 357 

CHAPTER  XXV 
1877-1878 

Which  gives  some  Account  of  the  Happiness  and 
Excitement  of  the  Mission  and  Descriptions  of 
"Holiness  Meetings"  ....     373 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

1876-1878 

Letters  of  the  Period  in  Various  Moods       .  .     393 

CHAPTER  XXVII 
1878-1879 

The  Rev.  William  Booth  becomes  General  of  the 

Salvation   Army  .....     403 

CHAPTER  XXVIII 

1881-1882 

The  Question  of  Holy  Communion     .  .  .     423 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

1877-1881 

Hostility,  Suspicion,  and  Opposition   .  .  .     434 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

William  Booth    (after  a   Presentation   Portrait) 

(1856) Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

William  Booth's  Birthplace  (Nottingham) 20 

The  Rev.  William  Booth  (1859) 274 

The  Rev.  William  and  Catherine  Booth  (i860)      .      .      .286 

William  Booth's  Mother  (Mary  Moss  Booth)  .      .      .      .326 

General  Bramwell  Booth 351 

Mrs.  Bramwell  Booth 353 

Emma  Booth-Tucker  (died  1903) 398 

Facsimile  of  Official  Note  Heading  with  William  Booth's 

Criticism   (1878) 404 

William  Booth  (1879) 415 

A  Cartoon  published  in  Vanity  Fair  (1882)    ....   436 


They  shall  mount  up  with  wings  as  eagles 


THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    TIMES    INTO    WHICH    OUR    HERO    WAS    BORN 
1829 

From  a  study  of  the  NotiingJiani  Date  Book  it  would  seem 
that  the  unchronicled  occurrence  of  William  Booth's  birth 
in  1829  was  preceded  and  accompanied  by  events  almost 
as  horrible  and  alarming  as  any  that  ever  intimidated  the 
decent  inhabitants  of  a  civilized  English  town. 

Nature  at  that  time  showed  her  most  ferocious  face  to 
the  midland  capital;  and  man,  who  is  said  to  begin  where 
nature  ends,  seems  to  have  had  no  difficulty  in  exceeding 
these  excesses  of  environment. 

It  was  a  period  of  tremendous  storms  and  of  horrible 
brutality:  of  thunder,  lightning,  and  devastating  rains:  of 
hideous  crimes  and  outrageous  destitution.  Nine  months 
before  the  birth  of  William  Booth  the  town  was  swept  and 
flooded  by  the  most  angry  tempest  within  living  memory; 
three  days  after  his  birth  immense  masses  of  rock  gave  way 
both  in  the  centre  of  the  city  and  in  the  then  neighbouring 
hamlet  of  Sneinton,  plunging  down  in  many  hundreds  of 
tons  upon  the  houses  beneath.  A  more  or  less  formal 
revival  in  the  religious  life  of  the  city  which  marked  the 
3^ear  of  the  great  rivivalist's  birth  may  have  been  due  in 
no  small  part  to  these  alarming  occurrences.  Many  churches 
and  chapels  in  1829  were  restored,  repaired,  or  reopened 
for  public  worship,  the  local  dignitaries  taking  a  ceremonial 
part  in  some  of  the  celebrations  which  marked  these  efforts 
either  to  appease  the  heavens  or  to  Christianize  the  people. 

Two  years  before,  the  town  had  been  deeply  shocked 
by  the  discovery  of  a  gang  of  resurrection  men  in  its  midst 
who  went  about  at  night  "  despoiling  the  sanctuaries  of  the 
dead."     So  sharply  did  this  disclosure  agitate  and  excite 

I 


2  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  minds  of  Nottingham  people  that,  when  the  murders 
committed  by  Burke  and  Hare  in  Edinburgh  became  known 
in  1829,  the  whole  town  was  thrown  into  a  condition  of 
panic  which  necessitated  action  by  the  magistrates.  Burke 
and  Hare  were  "  connected  with  the  murder  by  suffocation 
of  thirty  or  forty  persons,  for  the  sake  of  the  money  arising 
from  the  sale  of  their  bodies  for  the  purposes  of  dissection  " ; 
and  so  alarmed  were  the  inhabitants  of  Nottingham  by 
these  dreadful  disclosures  that  "  timid  people  dared  not 
to  venture  out  after  dark,  and  all  sorts  of  alarming  reports 
were  in  circulation."  Little  was  talked  of,  we  are  told, 
"  but  rumours  of  pitch-plasters  being  placed  on  people's 
mouths,  and  of  others  being  missing  and  burked."  The 
magistrates  of  Nottingham  were  obliged,  so  general  was 
the  panic,  to  issue  a  notice  declaring  that  there  was  no 
foundation  for  the  alarm. 

Murders,  highway  robberies,  mysterious  stabbings  of 
women  in  the  streets  at  night,  crimes  of  every  kind,  public 
executions  and  a  public  whipping  witnessed  by  enormous 
crowds  of  people,  escapes  from  the  county  gaol  in  Narrow 
Marsh,  riots  and  insurrections  of  a  most  demoniacal  char- 
acter, devastating  fires,  destructive  floods,  and  thunder- 
storms fatal  to  man  and  beast  —  these  dire  and  dreadful 
things  continued  to  agitate  the  life  of  Nottingham  through- 
out the  boyhood  of  William  Booth.  We  may  allow  ourselves 
the  conjecture  that  the  child  was  influenced  in  no  small 
measure  by  the  continual  excitement  provoked  by  these 
events,  particularly  when  we  remember  the  isolation  of 
provincial  cities  at  that  time  and  the  general  narrowness 
of  the  outlook  upon  life.  He  would  have  heard  on  every 
side  of  him  breathless  tales  of  murder  and  garottings, 
descriptions  of  surging  drunken  crowds  watching  the  hang- 
ing of  criminals;  he  would  have  seen  the  maddened  rioters 
when  they  tore  down  the  iron  railings  in  front  of  his  father's 
house  to  use  them  as  weapons  against  the  soldiers  and 
special  constables;  he  did  see,  and  on  many  occasions, 
bodies  of  men  and  women  charging  through  the  streets 
to  sack  bakers'  shops,  returning  with  their  arms  full  of 
loaves;  he  was  the  witness  again  and  again  of  such  misery 
and  destitution,  such  haggard  want  and  infuriating  depriva- 


I]  THE  TIMES  IN  WHICH  BORN  3 

tion,  as  filled  the  streets  with  angry  mobs  shouting  for  food, 
compelled  the  authorities  to  read  the  Riot  Act,  and  drove 
thousands  of  people  to  seek  the  relief  of  the  rates. 

Children  in  the  poor  streets  of  great  cities  hear  nothing 
of  political  events;  they  are  uninfluenced  by  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  period.  But  their  minds,  in  that  region  which 
psychologists  name  the  unconscious,  are  influenced,  and 
powerfully  influenced,  by  all  the  sights  and  all  the  sounds 
of  their  environment.  They  take  a  passive  part  in  the 
life  of  their  own  immediate  world,  but  their  minds  are 
unconsciously  active,  and  their  characters  are  permanently 
affected  by  the  most  transitory  excitement  of  their  time. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  William  Booth  heard  any  dis- 
cussions touching  Catholic  Emancipation,  the  Reform  Bill, 
Newman's  work  at  Oxford,  Negro  Emancipation,  and  the 
stubborn  conservatism  of  that  "  unmanageable  naval 
officer,"  his  sovereign  lord,  King  William  the  Fourth.  But 
it  is  quite  certain  that  he  heard  a  number  of  stories  of  the 
dreadful  murder  that  was  followed  by  the  last  execution 
on  Gallows  Hill ;  of  the  funeral  by  night,  without  religious 
ceremony,  of  a  younsf  butcher  who  had  committed  suicide 
in  so  deliberate  a  fashion  that  the  jury  was  forced  to  bring 
in  a  verdict  of  felo  de  sc:  of  the  great  riot  which  led  among 
other  things  to  the  gutting  of  Nottingham  Castle  by  incen- 
diaries; of  the  public  execution  of  some  of  the  rioters; 
of  the  frightful  desolation  wrought  in  the  tow^n  by  Asiatic 
cholera ;  of  the  fight  between  two  young  men  on  Mapperley 
Plains  for  the  love  of  a  girl  who  had  promised  to  marry  the 
winner,  one  of  the  men  being  killed  in  the  contest;  of  more 
than  one  execution  of  men  for  atrocious  offences  committed 
against  young  women:  of  people  transported  for  life  on 
trivial  charges;  of  the  last  public  flogging  to  take  place 
in  Nottingham;  of  many  a  disastrous  fire  that  swept 
through  the  city ;  and  of  the  crashing  down  of  rock  in 
Sneinton  Hermitage,  close  to  his  own  home,  with  a  noise 
that  seemed  like  the  thunders  of  Judgment  Day. 

Gossip  of  this  kind  must  have  been  general  in  the  town, 
particularly  among  children,  and  we  know  that  it  made  a 
dark  impression  on  the  mind  of  William  Booth.  "  When  but 
a  mere  child,"  he  says  in  his  preface  to  In  Darkest  England, 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

published  in  1890,  "  the  degradation  and  helpless  misery  of 
the  poor  stockingers  of  my  native  town,  wandering  gaunt 
and  hunger-stricken  through  the  streets,  droning  out  their 
melancholy  ditties,  crowding  the  union  or  toiling  like  gal- 
ley slaves  on  relief  works  for  a  bare  subsistence,  kindled  in 
my  heart  yearnings  to  help  the  poor  which  have  continued  to 
this  day,  and  which  have  had  a  powerful  influence  on  my 
whole  life."  He  spoke  on  one  occasion  of  his  troubled 
childhood,  saying  with  some  bitterness,  which  the  reader 
will  readily  understand,  "  From  the  earliest  days  I  was 
thrown  into  close  association  with  poverty  in  its  lowest 
depths."  His  mind,  before  it  was  penetrated  by  religious 
illumination,  must  have  been  depressed  by  the  gossip  of 
Nottingham  back-streets  and  by  the  sights  of  misery  and 
want  which  confronted  him  at  every  turn. 

In  1837,  the  year  which  witnessed  Queen  Victoria's 
accession  to  the  throne,  there  was  distress  in  Nottingham 
of  a  most  grievous  and  heartbreaking  description.  William 
Booth,  though  only  eight  years  of  age,  was  powerfully 
impressed  by  the  horrors  of  that  year.  A  public  meeting 
was  held  in  the  Exchange  at  which  five  thousand  pounds 
was  subscribed  for  "  the  relief  of  the  widely-spread  distress 
amongst  the  operative  classes,  arising  from  an  utter  pros- 
tration of  the  manufacturing  interest."  The  number  of 
persons  thrown  for  subsistence  upon  the  poor  rates  was 
greater  than  ever  before  known.  "  The  enumeration  was  as 
follows  :  —  Within  the  walls  of  the  house,  971.  Two  hun- 
dred men  on  the  roads,  with  families  of  four  on  an  average, 
1,000.  Fed  twice  a  day  in  a  temporary  erection  on  Back 
Commons,  258.  Children  fed  and  educated,  200.  Aged, 
infirm,  sick,  etc.,  receiving  outdoor  relief,  1,200.  Total 
relieved  from  the  rates  weekly,  3,629 ;  or  about  one  in 
fourteen  of  the  entire  population  of  the  union."  An  entry 
in  the  Nottingham  Date  Book  shows  that  the  local  wages, 
although  shamefully  inadequate,  were  higher  than  those  of 
the  stockingers  (4s.  6d.  a  week)  mentioned  in  the  Life  of 
Thomas  Cooper. 

The  year  1838  was  famous  for  a  severe  winter  and  the 
freezing  of  the  river  Trent.  The  first  stone  of  the  new 
church  at  Sneinton,  where  William  Booth  had  been  baptized. 


I]  THE  TIMES  IN  WHICH  BORN  5 

was  laid  by  Lord  Manvers.  Grace  Darling's  heroic  exer- 
tions to  save  the  lives  of  people  on  board  the  wrecked 
Forfarshire  thrilled  the  whole  country,  and  in  Nottingham, 
because  a  Mr.  Churchill  of  the  town  was  among  those  who 
had  perished,  made  a  deep  impression;  a  monument  was 
set  up  in  the  General  Cemetery. 

In  1839  the  new  church  at  Sneinton  was  opened  by  the 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  and  we  may  take  it  as  fully  certain 
that  William  Booth  was  present  at  this  elaborate  ceremonial. 
Worse  distress  than  ever  occurred  among  the  operatives, 
lasting  from  that  autumn  to  the  spring  of  1840.  Three 
thousand  four  hundred  and  eighty-one  people  received  relief. 
A  riot  was  anticipated,  and  the  troops  in  the  town  were 
kept  under  arms. 

In  1842  there  was  an  attempt  "  to  promote  a  general 
strike,  or  cessation  from  labour,  until  the  document  known 
as  the  People's  Charter  became  the  law  of  the  land."  I 
believe  this  is  the  first  mention  of  a  general  strike,  and  it 
seems  as  if  Nottingham  gave  birth  to  the  idea.  Now  and 
again  William  Booth  hung  on  the  outskirts  of  the  large 
crowds  that  gathered  to  hear  the  Chartist  orators. 

In  1844  the  whole  town  was  staggered  by  a  calamity 
which  could  not  fail  to  leave  an  impression  on  the  mind 
of  young  Booth.  A  labourer  named  William  Saville,  aged 
29,  who  had  been  married  at  Sneinton  Church,  murdered  his 
wife  and  three  children.  He  was  executed  on  August  8, 
and  an  immense  crowd  gathered  to  witness  the  spectacle. 
"  Eight  was  the  hour  of  execution,  but  every  available 
space  was  occupied  long  before  it  arrived.  Occasionally, 
there  came  a  cry  from  the  surging  mass  that  some  one  was 
fainting  or  being  crushed  to  death,  and  if  the  sufferer  were 
fortunate  enough  not  to  be  entirely  bereft  of  strength,  he 
or  she  was  lifted  up,  and  permitted  to  walk  to  the  extremity 
of  the  crowd  on  the  shoulders  of  the  people.  Saville  was  led 
forth,  and  at  three  minutes  past  eight,  the  drop  descended. 
Almost  immediately  after  the  mighty  crowd  broke,  as  it 
were,  in  the  middle.  The  anxiety,  deep  and  general,  to 
witness  the  spectacle,  was  succeeded  by  an  equally  general 
and  still  deeper  desire  to  get  away  from  the  overpowering 
and  suffocating  pressure.     The  result  was  positively  awful. 


6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

The  greater  portion  of  the  house  doors  along  the  Pavement 
were  closed,  and  those  who  were  crushed  against  the  walls 
by  the  terrific,  resistless  tide  had  no  means  of  escape. 
Twelve  persons  were  killed,  and  more  than  a  hundred 
received  serious  injuries;  and  of  the  latter,  the  deaths  of 
five,  after  lingering  illnesses,  were  clearly  traceable  to  the 
same  catastrophe." 

William  Booth  had  already  started  his  life  as  a  preacher 
when  in  1847  the  curate  of  his  old  church  at  Sneinton  com- 
mitted suicide  in  the  grounds  of  Nottingham  Castle,  shooting 
himself  on  the  refusal  of  a  vicar  in  the  town  to  accept  him 
as  the  lover  of  his  daughter,  a  girl  of  seventeen  years  of 
age. 

These  few  events,  however  briefly  related,  will  afford 
some  idea  to  the  reader,  not  only  of  certain  local  influences 
surrounding  the  childhood  of  William  Booth,  but  of  the 
spirit  of  the  age  in  which  he  was  born.  How  different  was 
that  period  from  our  own  may  perhaps  be  better  seen  in 
one  single  occurrence,  half  grotesque  and  half  scandalous, 
which  is  recorded  in  the  Nottingham  Date  Book  as  late 
as  1852: 

April  28. —  About  twelve  o'clock,  a  female  about  38  years 
of  age,  accompanied  by  her  husband  and  two  of  his  companions 
stood  in  the  Market  Place,  near  the  sheep  pens.  The  female 
was  the  wife  of  Edward  Stevenson,  rag  merchant,  Millstone 
Lane,  and  he  had  come  to  the  determination,  with  her  consent, 
to  dispose  of  her  by  auction.  A  new  rope,  value  sixpence,  was 
round  her  neck.  StCA^enson,  with  his  wife  unabashed  by  his 
side,  held  the  rope,  and  exclaimed,  "  Here  is  my  wife  for  sale : 
I  shall  put  her  up  for  two  shillings  and  sixpence."  A  man 
named  John  Burrows,  apparently  a  navvy,  proffered  a  shilling 
for  the  lot,  and  after  some  haggling  she  was  knocked  off  at 
that  price,  and  they  all  went  to  The  Spread  Eagle  to  sign  ar- 
ticles of  agreement,  the  lady  being  the  only  party  able  to  sign 
her  name. 

One  cannot  now  imagine  such  an  occurrence  as  this  in 
any  civilized  town,  and  the  remembrance  of  it,  kept  in 
mind  during  that  part  of  our  narrative  which  deals  with 
the  childhood  and  youth  of  William  Booth,  will  enable  the 
reader  to  enter  more  closely  into  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  the  young  evangelist.     He  was  not  only  born  in  Netting- 


I]  THE  TIMES  IN  WHICH  BORN  7 

ham  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  he  was 
shaped  by  the  Nottingham  of  that  period.  And  if  he 
breathed  the  excited  spirit  of  reform  which  filled  the  air 
of  the  town  at  that  time,  as  certainly  did  he  take  into  his 
soul  the  dark  and  squalid  colour  of  his  environment.  He 
not  only  saw  suffering,  he  experienced  it.  He  not  only 
witnessed  the  destructive  force  of  sin,  he  was  aware  in 
himself  of  its  power.  From  his  earliest  years  he  was  thrown 
into  close  association  with  poverty  in  its  lowest  depths; 
and  on  the  mountains  he  remembered  the  pit  from  which 
he  was  digged.  In  few  instances  of  great  and  remarkable 
men  is  it  more  possible  to  trace  throughout  the  years  of 
their  lives,  up  to  the  very  last,  so  clear  and  deep  a  mark  of 
the  earliest  influences  upon  their  character. 

That  there  was  some  effort  to  reach  the  people  of 
Nottingham  with  a  more  pressing  sense  of  the  claims  of 
religion  than  was  offered  at  that  time  by  the  established 
churches  and  chapels,  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
an  evangelist  from  Yorkshire  visited  the  town,  and  preached 
the  gospel  of  conversion  with  a  fair  measure  of  success.  No 
mention  is  made  of  this  John  Smith  in  the  Nottingham 
Date  Book,  but  it  is  quite  clear  from  other  sources  that  his 
visit  was  memorable  in  the  religious  history  of  the  town. 
Nottingham  was  dear  to  the  heart  of  Wesley,  and  that 
great  man  has  left  behind  him  an  affectionate  tribute  to 
the  honesty  and  kindness  of  its  generous  people.  He 
visited  the  town  on  several  occasions.  His  preaching 
brought  about  numerous  conversions  and  led  to  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  strong  and  enduring  Methodism.  But  the 
zeal  of  the  founder,  the  fire  and  passion  which  inspired 
his  teaching  as  an  evangelist,  was  cooling,  and  towards  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  Methodism  in  Nottingham, 
as  well  as  elsew^here  throughout  England,  was  becoming  a 
somewhat  formal  school  of  religion.  It  was  beginning  to 
forget  the  poor. 

The  visit  of  John  Smith  wrought  a  change,  and  it  is 
fair  to  regard  him  as  a  precursor  of  David  Greenbury,  James 
Caughey,  and  William  Booth ;  although  he  is  not  to  be 
reckoned  one  of  the  immortals  among  revivalists.  He  had 
neither  the  scholarly  sweetness  of  Wesley,  nor  the  deep 


8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

humanity  of  William  Booth;  he  believed  in  conversion, 
but  people  had  to  come  to  his  chapel  to  experience  it ;  he 
desired  the  Salvation  of  sinners,  but  he  did  not  seek  them 
where  they  were  to  be  found ;  whether  he  felt  for  the  wrongs 
of  the  people  we  do  not  know,  but  he  is  certainly  not 
conspicuous  as  a  champion  of  their  rights. 

John  Smith,  we  are  told,  "  was  exceedingly  wild  and 
wicked  as  a  youth,  but,  getting  converted  in  a  revival  at 
his  native  village  in  1812,  he  became  a  local  preacher." 
One  who  knew  him  tells  me  that  he  had  the  habit  of  praying 
at  public  meetings  with  his  eyes  tight  squeezed,  his  arms 
outspread,  his  hands  wide  open,  and  with  his  fingers  working 
rapidly  —  a  fashion  which  was  imitated  by  others.  One  of 
his  phrases  was,  "God  will  stand  to  His  engagements; 
His  work  must  go  on."  Typical  of  his  method  is  a  "  re- 
markable incident  "  which  occurred  at  a  love  feast  ^  over 
which  Mr.  Smith  presided  in  the  Halifax  Place  Chapel: 

A  local  preacher  rose  and  said  that  "  he  had  once  enjoyed  the 
blessing  of  entire  sanctification,  but  through  unwatchfulness 
had  in  this  respect  suffered  loss."  With  much  feeling  he  added 
that  he  was  now  earnestly  longing  and  waiting  for  the  restora- 
tion of  this  great  privilege.  Mr.  Smith  instantly  started  from 
his  seat  in  the  pulpit,  and  cried,  *'  The  all-cleansing  power  is  on 
you  now !  "  For  a  moment  he  hesitated,  it  was  but  a  moment, 
and  he  then  exclaimed,  while  the  whole  of  his  body  quivered 
with  emotion,  "  It  is  ;  I  feel  it  in  my  heart !  "  The  congregation 
then  united  in  thanksgiving  and  prayer;  in  a  short  time  the 
windows  of  heaven  were  opened,  and  there  was  a  rush  of  holy 
influence,  such  as  by  the  majority  of  that  vast  assembly  was 
never  before  experienced.  It  seemed  like  a  stream  of  light- 
ning passing  through  every  spirit.  At  one  time,  twenty  persons 
obtained  the  blessing  of  perfect  love,  and  rose  up  rapidly  one 
after  another,  in  an  ecstasy  of  praise,  to  declare  that  God  had 
then  cleansed  their  heart  from  all  sin. 

David  Greenbury,  who  exercised  no  small  influence  on 
William  Booth,  also  came  to  Nottingham  from  Yorkshire. 
He  seems  to  have  been  a  different  type  from  John  Smith 
in  many  respects.     He  is  described  as  looking  like  a  country 

1  The  Love  Feast  was  at  this  time  a  form  of  religious  service  peculiar 
to  the  Methodist  communities.  It  was  a  meeting  for  public  testimony, 
generally  accompanied  by  partaking  of  bread  and  water  as  a  sign  of 
unity,  mutual  confidence,  and  good-will. 


I]  THE  TIMES  IN  WHICH  BORN  9 

squire  —  a  tall,  bearded  man,  not  unlike  the  General  Booth 
of  later  life.  One  of  his  favourite  hymns,  it  is  remembered, 
contained  the  lines  — 

Though  in  the  flesh  I  feel  the  thorn, 
I  bless  the  day  that  I  was  born. 

He  rejoiced  in  life,  and  found  a  deep  pleasure  in  his  work. 
It  is  said  that  he  was  the  first  man  to  encourage  William 
Booth  to  continue  his  public  speaking.  One  of  his  converts 
became  the  talk  of  Nottingham,  and  the  story  must  have 
given  an  impulse  to  the  spirit  of  young  Booth  —  perhaps  the 
first  impulse  of  that  kind.  A  notorious  rascal  called  "  Besom 
Jack,"  whose  wife  and  children  starved  while  he  went  from 
tavern  to  tavern  —  a  lady  is  still  living  in  Nottingham  who 
remembers  how  his  wife  would  come  to  her  mother's  back 
door  begging  for  old  tea-leaves  —  was  converted  at  one  of 
David  Greenbury's  meetings  and  became  a  sensible,  good, 
honest  man,  a  glad  and  cheerful  Christian,  who  testified 
•wherever  he  went  to  the  blessings  and  the  miracle  of  con- 
version. 

But  the  greatest  influence  upon  William  Booth  was 
exercised,  beyond  all  question,  by  the  American  evangelist 
James  Caughey,  a  minister  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church.  This  man  attracted  enormous  crowds  to  Wesley 
Chapel,  and  brought  about  an  undoubted  revival  of  religion 
in  the  town.  He  was  a  tall,  thin,  smooth-shaven,  cada- 
verous person  with  dark  hair.  One  who  often  saw  him 
and  well  remembers  him  tells  me  that  he  wore  a  voluminous 
black  cloak  folded  about  him  in  a  Byronic  manner;  his 
voice  was  subdued,  he  gave  no  sign  of  an  excitable  dis- 
position, his  preaching  warmed  slowly  into  heat  and  passion 
which  communicated  themselves  with  magnetic  instan- 
taneousness  to  his  audiences. 

It  will  give  the  reader  a  faithful  idea  of  this  preacher 
and  his  method,  and  also  a  general  idea  of  the  prevalent 
religious  feeling,  if  I  quote  at  this  point  a  rather  striking 
description  of  one  of  his  religious  meetings  which  I  was 
fortunate  enough  to  discover  in  an  ancient  Nottingham 
newspaper.     The    reporter,    it    would    seem,    was    unlucky 


lo  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

in    being    bora    before    the    advent    of    the    sensational 
press : 

The  preaching  of  Mr.  Caughey  creates  a  very  great  sensation 
in  the  town;  the  chapel  is  crowded  even  in  the  aisles  during 
every  service,  and  at  its  conclusion  numbers  of  penitents  make 
their  way  to  the  communion-rails,  near  the  pulpit,  to  seek,  under 
the  terrors  of  guilty  consciences,  benefit  there.  It  was  an- 
nounced on  Wednesday  evening,  that  two  hundred  persons  had 
given  in  their  names  as  having  received  conversion  under  Mr. 
Caughey's  ministry  since  he  came  to  Nottingham,  and  we  be- 
lieve his  visit  will  not  soon  be  forgotten.  There  is  nothing  in 
the  manner  in  which  the  reverend  gentleman  commences  the 
service  to  lead  the  reader  to  expect  what  is  to  follow.  He  gives 
out  the  hymn  in  a  calm,  easy,  unappreciating  style,  and  in  a  tone 
so  conversational,  that  persons  sitting  in  a  distant  part  of  the 
chapel  find  it  impossible  to  gather  the  purport  of  his  words.  It 
is  more  with  the  air  and  tone  of  a  man  reading  a  paragraph 
from  a  newspaper  to  a  select  party  than  that  of  a  preacher  pro- 
claiming an  important  message  to  a  large  congregation. 

In  his  prayer,  too,  very  few  indications  are  given  of  the 
astonishing  power  he  possesses  over  the  mind ;  though  it  is  not 
without  its  peculiarities.  He  Hfts  his  hands  towards  heaven, 
and  keeps  them  in  that  posture  during  the  whole  of  his  suppli- 
cation, like  Moses,  when  Israel  fought  in  Rephidim ;  and  once 
or  twice,  perhaps,  at  some  point  of  deeper  feeling  clasps  his 
palms  together,  and  then  re-elevates  them  into  the  same  poetic 
attitude.  But,  generally  speaking,  his  prayers  have  rather  the 
tone  of  calm  disquisition  than  address  to  the  Deity ;  and  nothing 
at  all  in  them  expressive  of  power,  except  when  a  gush  of  deep 
affectionate  feeling  makes  its  way  through  the  mild  tranquillity, 
or  at  rarer  intervals  flashes  out  for  an  instant  the  lightning 
which  has  been  so  calmly  folded  in  its  mantle  of  quiet  cloud. 

His  reading  of  Scripture  betrays  even  less  of  power  than  his 
prayer ;  it  is  not  performed  without  a  certain  subdued  feeling ; 
but  there  is  i  peculiar  off-hand  style  with  it,  and  a  certain  tone 
of  dramatic  appreciation,  without  any  great  apparent  solemnity 
or  reverence  in  the  delivery.  It  is  not  till  he  prepares  to  name 
his  text,  that  any  extraordinary  power  is  manifested ;  he  gen- 
erally prefaces  it  with  some  observation  on  what  he  has  felt 
during  the  day,  or  since  he  entered  the  pulpit ;  or  with  an  appeal 
to  a  certain  character  whom  he  prophesies  to  be  in  the  congre- 
gation. Then,  indeed,  it  becomes  plain,  however  the  preju- 
diced visitor  may  have  doubted  it  before,  that  the  man  is  in 
earnest  —  terribly  in  earnest ;  and  that  every  word  he  says  he 
both  feels  and  believes. 

On  Tuesday  night,  when  the  preliminary  parts  of  the  service 
had  been  gone  through,  and  the  Bible  lay  open  before  him. 


I]  THE  TIMES  IN  WHICH  BORN  ii 

instead  of  taking  his  text,  as  it  was  natural  to  expect  lie  would, 
he  startled  the  congregation  by  a  searching  appeal  to  some  back- 
slider, whom  he  individualized  as  present  among  them ;  and  in 
his  manner  of  doing  this  showed  great  knowledge  of  human 
nature,  and  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  subtleties  of  the 
mind.  Such  a  character,  if  present  in  the  place,  unless  his  heart 
were  triple  brass,  must  have  been  struck  as  with  a  thunderbolt. 
Of  the  heart  indeed  his  dissections  are  masterly ;  he  is  evidently 
well  versed  in  its  anatomy.  As  he  represented  a  certain  char- 
acter, a  backslider  perhaps,  or  a  defrauder,  or  a  profane  person, 
many  eyes  seemed  fraught  with  the  anxious  inquiry,  "  Is  it  I  ?  " 
until  at  length,  as  the  lineaments  of  the  portrait  became  clearer 
and  more  distinctly  defined,  the  shrinking  look  and  trembling 
frame  declared  in  unmistakable  language,  "  It  is  I !  " 

In  his  manner  of  looking  at  a  text  there  is  something  original ; 
ingenious  and  unexpected  terms  are  given  to  the  different  parts 
of  it;  and  as  each  is  illustrated,  it  tells  with  surprising  power 
upon  the  congregation.  This  effect  is  heightened  by  a  certain 
abruptness  of  delivery,  which,  scorning  all  preface  and  apology, 
rushes  instantly  to  its  point,  and  takes  possession  of  his  hearers 
by  storm.  His  eloquence,  too,  is  not  an  even,  uninterrupted 
flow  of  words,  but  his  speech  is  forced  out  in  jerks  of  great 
intensity,  with  an  interval  between  each  burst.  It  must  be  al- 
lowed that  his  style  is  highly  poetical ;  not  that  he  indulges  in 
fine,  unusual  words  and  strings  of  epithets ;  there  is  no  attempt 
at  display  of  this  kind ;  simple  and  plain,  his  style  is  yet  re- 
markable for  its  poetic  effectiveness ;  and  to  this  he  owes  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  influence  he  exerts  over  his  hearers. 

On  Tuesday  night,  the  force  with  which  he  imaged  a  fold  of 
sheep,  to  illustrate  the  conduct  of  the  newly  converted  mind, 
was  singular ;  it  was  not  only  quite  evident  that  every  word  he 
said  he  saw  visibly  before  him,  but  he  made  his  hearers  see  it 
too ;  the  swine  prowling  about  the  fold  and  leering  at  the  flock, 
manifesting  no  desire  to  be  numbered  among  the  sheep,  was 
forcibly  contrasted  with  the  lamb  which  went  bleating  around 
to  spy  an  entrance,  and  at  last,  when  the  door  was  opened  by 
the  shepherd,  darted  in.  The  effect  of  such  passages  as  these 
was  very  much  increased  by  the  minister's  appropriate  attitudes 
and  gestures ;  not  his  mouth  only,  but  his  eyes  and  hands  and 
his  whole  person  combining  to  give  utterance  to  his  eloquent 
thought.  Every  scene  he  drew  was  visibly  before  the  eyes  of 
the  congregation ;  where  he  pointed  with  his  hand,  they  looked ; 
and  the  vacant  air  in  front  of  the  pulpit  wdiich  he  chose  as  the 
canvas  on  which  to  paint  his  vivid  designs,  was  evidently  no 
longer  a  vacancy  to  his  hearers,  as  was  quite  manifest  from  the 
fixed  stare  with  which  they  gazed  into  it.  When  he  spoke  of 
angels  as  hovering  over  the  people,  and  occupying  the  ring  en- 
closed by  the  gallery  of  the  chapel,  and  invented  conversations 


12  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

which  he  said  they  might  be  then  holding  with  respect  to  certain 
individuals  in  the  place,  the  silence  that  prevailed  among  the 
people  was  profound ;  they  scarcely  dared  to  breathe,  and 
seemed  as  if  they  really  were  hearing  the  rustling  and  flapping 
of  the  invisible  wings.  But  as  this  picture  was  allowed  to  fade 
away,  and  an  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  the  people  followed ;  and 
when  the  solicitude  of  the  souls  of  the  departed  after  the  eternal 
welfare  of  their  friends  below  was  dwelt  upon,  a  universal  sob 
burst  from  the  assembly,  and  even  the  faces  of  the  rugged  and 
weather-beaten  men  were  illuminated  by  the  reflection  of  the 
lamps  in  the  water  upon  their  cheeks.  At  times  this  emotion 
assumed  a  more  frantic  character,  shouts,  groans,  and  all  man- 
ner of  pious  ejaculations  rising  from  all  parts  of  the  house,  until 
the  preacher's  voice  became  inaudible,  and  the  whole  place 
resounded  with  the  wailings  and  cries. 

The  arrangements  were  extremely  well  ordered  and  efficient ; 
during  the  prayer-meeting  which  succeeded  the  service,  num- 
bers of  persons  were  observed  in  all  parts  of  the  chapel,  who 
had  been  appointed  to  lead  up  to  the  communion-rails  those  who 
were  desirous  of  being  publicly  prayed  for ;  and  as  they  ob- 
tained assurance  of  what  they  sought,  led  them  out  orderly  at 
the  vestry  door. 

The  Rev.  Isaac  Page,  who  was  a  boy  at  the  time  of 
Caughey's  visit,  remembers  seeing  crowds  of  people  clam- 
bering over  the  iron  railings  in  front  of  Wesley  Chapel  an 
hour  or  more  before  the  meeting  Opened.  The  chapel, 
which  seated  eighteen  hundred  people,  was  densely  thronged 
in  every  part,  and  numbers  were  unable  to  enter  at  the 
crowded  doors.  People  remember  seeing  the  tall  figure  of 
Caughey  standing  up  to  preach  in  a  breathless  silence,  and 
being  startled  by  the  suddenness  with  which  he  thrust  out 
an  arm,  pointing  upwards  with  a  straight  accusing  finger, 
and  exclaiming,  "  There  is  a  young  man  in  the  gallery 
who  had  an  awful  dream  last  night;  he  thought  the  Day 
of  Judgment  had  come !  "  A  hymn  introduced  by  James 
Caughey  was  sung  all  over  Nottingham,  as  seventy  or  eighty 
years  afterwards  the  "  Glory  Song,"  introduced  by  another 
American  evangelis-t,  was  sung  all  over  London.  Caughey's 
hymn  contained  these  verses : 

O  Thou  God  of  my  salvation 

My  Redeemer  from  all  sin, 
Moved  by  Thy  divine  compassion, 

Who  hast  died  my  soul  to  win : 


I]  THE  TIMES  IN  WHICH  BORN  13 

Glory !     Glory !     Glory !     Glory ! 

Glory  !     Glory  !     God  is  Love  ! 
Glory !     Glory !     Glory !     Glory ! 

Hallelujah!     God  is  Love  ! 

This  has  set  my  soul  on  fire, 

Strongly  glows  the  flame  of  love, 
Higher  mounts  my  soul  and  higher. 

Longing  for  the  rest  above : 
Glory !     Glory !     Glory !     Glory ! 

Glory  !     Glory  !     God  is  Love  ! 
Glory !     Glory !     Glory !     Glory ! 

Hallelujah!     God  is  Love  ! 

The  Wesleyan  Methodist  Society,  in  one  of  those  years,  in- 
creased, I  am  told,  by  30,000  members. 

The  visit  of  this  American  evangelist,  though  it  did 
nothing  to  associate  religion  with  humanitarian  idealism, 
and  little  to  create  a  social  conscience,  nevertheless  revived 
the  flames  of  Wesleyan  Methodism  and  breathed  some  sense 
of  greatness  into  the  sordid  air  of  a  much  troubled  manu- 
facturing town.  It  exercised  a  profound  influence  upon 
William  Booth's  astonishing  career,  and  in  the  shout  of 
"  Glory !  Glory  I  Glory  I  "  one  may  trace  the  dawn  of  Booth's 
great  central  preaching,  that  religion  is  not  imposed  as  a 
difficult  and  laborious  thing  by  an  exacting  God,  but  given  as 
a  blessing  and  deliverance  to  poor  sorrowful  creatures  pun- 
ished and  afflicted  by  their  own  wrong-doing. 

As  regards  the  orthodox  religious  life  of  the  town,  it 
would  seem  that  Nottingham  did  not  suffer  so  greatly  as 
other  parts  of  the  country  from  disreputable  or  sporting 
clergymen.  Parson  Wyatt,  for  instance,  the  vicar  of  Snein- 
ton  Church,  was  a  Puseyite,  and  is  remembered  by  many 
Nonconformists  as  a  good,  earnest,  and  zealous  man.  But, 
on  the  whole,  the  churches  of  the  town  seem  to  have  been 
conducted  on  the  principle  that  those  who  wanted  religion 
would  come  and  ask  for  it,  and  those  who  stayed  away  had 
deliberately  elected  for  evil.  There  was  no  missionary 
spirit.  Men's  minds  were  taken  up  with  political  and  in- 
dustrial questions.  Christianity  was  distinctly  in  shadow. 
It  may  be  said  with  a  fair  degree  of  truth  that  through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  Anglican  clergymen 


14  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap.i] 

were  Tories  before  everything  else,  and  dissenting  ministers, 
as  they  were  then  called,  in  spite  of  a  subdued  interest  in 
revivalism,  were  in  large  measure  concerned  with  Liberal 
politics. 


CHAPTER  II 

HIS  PARENTAGE^  A  TALE  OF  THE  HOUSE  IN  WHICH   HE  WAS 
BORN,    AND    THE    CHARACTER    OF    HIS    ENVIRONMENTS 

I 828- I 838 

It  is  an  interesting  coincidence  that  the  father  of  Herbert 
Spencer  came  from  Derby  into  the  neighbourhood  of 
Nottingham  at  about  the  same  time  that  the  father  of 
William  Booth  migrated  from  Belper  to  a  Nottingham 
suburb.  Both  men  speculated  with  their  savings,  moved  by 
the  same  hope  of  fortune  from  the  extraordinar}^  prosperity 
of  lace  manufacture  by  machinery,  and  both  were  dis- 
appointed in  this  ambition.  The  father  of  Herbert  Spencer 
withdrew  before  he  was  quite  ruined;  the  father  of  William 
Booth  clung  stubbornly  and  avariciously  to  his  speculations, 
finally  dragging  down  his  wife  and  family  into  a  condition 
of  penury. 

In  Herbert  Spencer's  Autobiography  an  amusing  anec- 
dote is  recorded  which  shows  that  his  father  had  something 
of  the  same  spirit  which  animated  William  Booth.  "If 
he  saw  boys  quarrelling  he  stopped  to  expostulate ;  and 
he  could  never  pass  a  man  who  was  ill-treating  his  horse 
without  trying  to  make  him  behave  better."  This  incident 
is  recorded :  "  While  he  was  travelling  (between  Derby  and 
Nottingham,  I  think)  there  got  on  the  coach  a  man  who 
was  half  intoxicated.  My  father  entered  into  conversation 
with  him,  and  sought  to  reform  his  habits,  by  pointing 
out  the  evil  resulting  from  it  (sic).  After  listening  good- 
temperedly  for  a  time  the  man  replied,  '  Well,  y'  see, 
master,  there  mun  be  sum  o'  all  sorts,  and  I'm  o'  that 
sort.'  " 

If  heredity  were  an  exact  science  one  might  expect 
William  Booth  to  be  a  son  of  George  Spencer,  and  Herbert 
Spencer  to  be  a  son  of  Samuel  Booth. 

According   to    Mr.    Phillimore,    the   author   of    County 

IS 


^ 


i6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Pedigrees,  distinct  evidence  runs  back  through  the  local 
register  "  associating  the  Booths  with  Belper  at  least  as 
early  as  the  reign  of  Elizabeth."  Whether  the  family  dis- 
tinguished itself  in  any  way  we  do  not  know,  but  before 
the  days  of  Elizabeth  the  fifty-first  Archbishop  of  York  was 
a  William  Booth,  who  had  his  favourite  residence  at  South- 
well, w^hich  is  close  to  Nottingham,  and  where  the  William 
Booth  of  our  present  history  spent  a  part  of  his  childhood. 
A  brother  of  this  older  William  Booth,  Lawrence,  became 
fifty-third  Archbishop  of  York,  and  also  made  Southwell 
his  chief  residence.  He  was  a  grievous  failure  as  Lord 
Chancellor,  but  it  is  written  that  he  took  no  bribes.  In 
private  life,  W'e  are  told,  he  was  "  an  amiable  and  benevolent 
man,  expending  large  sums  of  money  on  educational  and 
charitable  objects." 

There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  the  family  of  General 
Booth  is  connected  by  marriage  with  that  family  of  Gregory 
which  gave  in  the  person  of  Robert  Gregory,  a  contemporary 
of  General  Booth,  a  popular  and  picturesque  Dean  to  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral.  A  William  Booth  of  Belper,  apparently 
the  great-grandfather  of  the  evangelist,  was  married  in  1742 
to  Elizabeth  Gregory;  the  bondsman  at  the  first  marriage  of 
Samuel  Booth  in  1797  was  Robert  Gregory;  and  the  evan- 
gelist, on  being  told  late  in  life  of  this  coincidence,  said  that 
he  remembered  being  taken  as  a  child  to  see  an  old  lady  who 
was  alwa3^s  spoken  of  as  "  Aunt  Gregory." 

Samuel  Booth,  father  of  the  evangelist,  was  born  at 
Belper  in  1775.  It  was  in  the  town  of  Belper  that  Primi- 
tive Methodists  were  first  called  Ranters;  and  since  Samuel 
Booth  was  nominally  a  Churchman,  and  a  hard,  taciturn, 
unemotional  man,  it  may  be  assumed  that  he  shared  in  this 
local  contempt  for  the  new  sect.  He  appears  to  have  been  a 
nail  manufacturer,  for  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage  in 
1797  to  one  Sarah  Lockitt  he  described  himself  in  the 
register  as  a  nailer.  Later  he  added  to  this  business  the 
trade  of  builder  and  the  profession  of  architect,  earning  a 
fortune  which  enabled  him  to  live  in  a  fine  house  at  Colston 
Bassett  and  to  describe  himself  sometimes  as  a  "  gentle- 
man," sometimes  as  a  "  yeoman."  One  child  was  born  of 
this  first  marriage,  a  son  named  William,  who  died  of  con- 


II]  PARENTAGE  17 

sumption  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  five  years  after  his 
mother's  death  in  1819. 

Mary  Moss,  the  second  wife  of  Samuel  Booth,  and  mother 
of  the  evangehst,  was  born  in  1791,  six  years  before  the  first 
marriage  of  her  husband.  Like  Samuel  Booth,  she  came  of 
Derbyshire  stock,  probably,  as  the  name  suggests  and  her 
wonderfully  handsome  face  corroborates,  of  Jewish  origin. 
She  was  the  daughter  of  a  well-to-do  farmer.  Her  mother 
died  when  she  was  quite  young,  and  she  went  to  live  with 
relations,  the  second  marriage  of  her  father  not  being  con- 
ducive to  a  happy  family  life.  She  encountered  Samuel 
Booth  at  Ashby-de-le-Zouch,  whither  he  had  gone  to  drink 
the  waters  as  a  cure  for  rheumatism.  On  his  first  proposal 
she  refused  him.  He  left  the  town  indignant,  but  returned, 
and  renewed  his  proposal,  leaving  her  no  peace  till  she 
accepted  him.  Of  this  marriage  there  were  five  children. 
The  eldest  son,  a  boy  named  Henry,  died  in  his  third  year; 
the  second  child  was  a  daughter,  Ann,  destined  to  exercise 
some  little  influence  on  the  evangelist  in  his  early  years ;  the 
third  child  was  the  evangelist  himself,  named  William  after 
the  son  of  the  first  marriage,  who  had  died  five  years  pre- 
viously :  and  the  two  remaining  children  were  girls  — 
Emma,  a  lifelong  invalid  who  died  unmarried,  aged  forty, 
and  Mary,  who  became  Mrs.  Newell,  and  died  at  the  age  of 
sixty-nine.  William  Booth,  therefore,  grew  up  the  only 
son  of  the  family,  with  an  elder  sister  and  two  younger 
sisters. 

Samuel  Booth  did  not  come  to  Nottingham  until  he  had 
more  or  less  impoverished  himself  by  speculation,  and  in 
leaving  Colston  Bassett  it  is  quite  certain  that  he  not  merely 
hoped  to  retrieve  his  fortunes,  but  was  positively  obliged  by 
his  altered  circumstances  to  seek  a  very  much  humbler  way 
of  living. 

In  those  days  Nottingham  was  just  beginning  to  lose  its 
ancient  charm  of  a  beautiful  and  pleasant  market-town 
distinguished  by  a  romantic  history.  Deering  had  boasted 
in  1750  that  the  town,  "adorned  with  many  stately  new 
buildings,  the  castle  on  the  left,  and  Sneinton  and  Wolwick 
Hills  on  the  right,  presents  the  traveller  coming  from  the 
south  with  a  surprisingly  grand  and  magnificent  prospect, 


i8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

in  the  framing  of  which  it  is  hard  to  eay  whether  Art  or 
Nature  has  the  greatest  share;  a  prospect  which  puts  even 
a  person  the  most  acquainted  with  all  parts  of  England,  to 
stand,  to  name  its  equal." 

But  a  later  writer  had  to  paint  a  more  sombre  picture. 
He  exclaims : 

Could  the  worthy  Doctor  rise  from  the  graveyard  of  St. 
Peter's  with  his  flowing  surtout,  his  powdered  wig,  three-cor- 
nered hat,  high-heeled  shoes,  and  silver  buckles,  and  be  placed 
in  the  Meadows,  his  surprise  would  be,  that  so  fine  a  view 
should  have  been  so  woefully  damaged ;  and  those  modern 
architectural  embellishments,  the  chimney-stalks,  the  low  and 
dingy  habitations,  wharf  buildings,  and  other  graceful  erections, 
which  so  greatly  mar  the  prospect,  would  doubtless  provoke  an 
expression  of  indignant  disapproval. 

The  extraordinary  prosperity  of  the  lace  industry,  which 
attracted  thousands  of  workmen  and  speculators  into  the 
town  in  1823,  suffered  a  check  in  1825,  and  soon  afterwards 
spent  itself,  plunging  a  large  population  into  poverty,  dis- 
tress, and  ruin.  But  the  effect  of  the  fever,  or,  as  Spencer 
called  it,  "  the  mania,"  was  horribly  and  permanently  to 
disfigure  the  town.  Herbert  Spencer's  father  came  to  Not- 
tingham as  a  lace  manufacturer ;  William  Booth's  father 
came  as  a  builder;  and  an  entry  in  the  Date  Book  in  April, 
1825,  will  give  the  reader  some  notion  of  how  the  specu- 
lative builders,  even  when  they  lost  their  money,  succeeded 
in  changing  the  character  of  the  town: 

The  only  feature  in  connection  with  the  fever  that  remains 
for  notice  was  the  extraordinary  difficulty  in  finding  house 
accommodation  for  the  amazing  influx  of  population.  Thou- 
sands of  houses  were  erected  by  greedy  speculators,  who  studied, 
not  the  convenience  and  health  of  those  obliged  to  take  them, 
but  how  they  might  best  secure  20  per  cent  per  annum  for  their 
outlay.  Many  more  would  have  been  built  had  not  the  prices 
of  land  and  materials  been  extravagantly  enhanced.  Bricks, 
for  example,  rose  from  30s.  to  £3  per  thousand;  and  a  plot  of 
land  on  Gilliflower  Hill,  not  quite  an  acre  in  extent,  was  sold 
by  auction  for  £4,000.  No  sooner  was  a  row  of  dwellings 
roofed  and  glazed,  than  the  kitchen  fires  began  to  smoke  and 
the  rentals  to  commence.  The  inquiry  was  not  so  much,  "  What 
is  the  rent?"  as,  "Will  you  let  me  a  house?"  In  one  in- 
stance, a  butcher,  who  had  been  exhibiting  from  town  to  town 


n]  PARENTAGE  19 

a  "  wonderful  pig,"  in  a  common  showman's  caravan,  ousted 
the  porkine  tenant  and  stationing  the  vehicle  in  his  garden  at  the 
back  of  York  Street,  actually  let  it  as  a  dwelling-place  for 
2S.  3d.  per  week. 

In  spite  of  all  this,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  the 
Nottingham  of  the  present  day  resembles  the  Nottingham 
of  William  Booth's  boyhood.  There  were  certainly  in  his 
days  "  chimney-stalks,"  low  and  dingy  habitations,  wharf 
buildings,  and  those  other  "  modern  architectural  embellish- 
ments," against  which  the  chronicler  in  1850  brought  his 
sorrowful  and  quite  ineffectual  accusation.  But  one  who 
knew  William  Booth's  family  in  the  forties,  and  who  w^as 
brought  up  in  Sneinton,  visited  the  town  w-ith  me  in  1913, 
going  over  as  much  of  the  old  ground  as  was  possible,  and 
from  beginning  to  end  of  our  journey  he  expressed  amaze- 
ment at  the  obliterating  effects  of  recent  development  and 
the  pervasive  change,  infinitely  for  the  worse,  which  has 
taken  place  quite  lately  in  the  town's  aspect. 

In  the  time  of  William  Booth's  boyhood  the  streets  of 
Nottingham  ended  where  the  Midland  Station  now  stands. 
The  area  between  that  and  the  river  Trent  was  known  as 
the  Meadows,  which  in  spring  were  blue  with  crocuses. 
Paths  led  to  Wilford  Ferry,  with  Clifton  Woods  beyond. 
The  whole  character  of  the  scenery  was  tender  and  endear- 
ing. To  William  Booth  the  fields,  the  woods,  and  the  river 
were  full  of  pleasure,  and  to  the  end  of  his  days  he  never 
spoke  of  these  scenes  without  an  instant  lapse  into  gentle- 
ness and  reverie. 

Mary  Howitt  describes  the  Meadows  in  her  Autobiog- 
raphy : 

The  greatest  beauty  in  the  landscape  was  one  peculiar  to  our 
meadows  —  our  inimitable  crocus-beds.  It  is  impossible  for 
any  who  do  not  see  them  t-o  conceive  their  extraordinary  beauty, 
shining  out  clear  and  bright  in  many  places  to  the  extent  of 
twenty  acres,  one  entire  bed  of  lilac  flowers.  Not  a  faint  tint 
of  colouring,  but  as  bright  as  the  young  green  grass,  with  which 
they  so  charmingly  contrast.  .  .  .  There  is  another  charm 
attached  to  these  flowers  besides  their  beauty,  and  it  is  the 
pleasure  they  afford  to  children.  You  see  them  flocking  down, 
as  if  to  a  fair,  all  day  long,  rich  and  poor  carrying  their  little 
baskets  full,  and  their  hands  and  pinafores  full,  gathering  their 


20  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

thousands,  and  leaving  tens  of  thousands  behind  them;  for 
every  day  brings  up  a  fresh  supply. 

Sneinton,  which  must  be  pronounced  Snenton,  was  in  the 
days  of  William  Booth's  boyhood  a  suburb  of  Nottingham; 
but  with  its  windmills,  wooded  hills,  generous  views  over 
a  gentle  valley,  and  fields  that  were  yet  unblackened  by 
factory  smoke,  it  preserved  something  of  the  character  of  a 
hamlet.  It  was,  however,  a  crowded  place  in  certain  parts ; 
and  the  house  to  which  Samuel  Booth  moved  on  his  coming 
into  the  district  was  closed  in  at  the  back  by  houses  in  the 
occupation  of  stockingers.  William  Booth  could  very 
easily  escape  to  the  fields  and  the  woods;  but  in  his  home, 
from  the  first  years  of  his  infancy,  he  was  in  close  contact 
with  the  noise  and  crowding  of  industrialism.  Nevertheless, 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind,  as  we  have  already  said,  that  both 
the  Sneinton  and  the  Nottingham  of  those  days  were  very 
different  from  the  vast  wilderness  of  ugly  houses  and 
dreary  streets,  of  enormous  factories  and  towering  work- 
shops, of  roaring  markets  and  incessant  traffic,  which  now 
characterize  the  bigger,  uglier,  although  more  flourishing, 
modern  town. 

The  house  in  which  William  Booth  was  born  is  still 
standing,  and  is  still  known  by  its  former  designation,  12 
Nottintone  Place,  Sneinton.  It  stands  in  a  tree-shaded 
cul-de-sac,  one  of  a  small  terrace  of  red-bricked  villas  sloping 
slowly  up  to  a  modest  knoll  crowned  by  a  substantial  house 
which  blocks  the  end  of  the  street.  The  houses  of  this 
terrace  are  built  back  from  the  road,  and  are  guarded  by 
tall  railings  rising  from  a  low  brick  wall.  No.  12  is  one 
of  three  houses  which  share  a  single  gate  in  these  railings, 
the  path  diverging  inside  the  walls  to  the  three  separate 
front  doors. 

The  interior  of  this  dwelling  deserves  description.  The 
front  door  opens  straight  into  the  parlour,  without  passage 
or  lobby  of  any  kind.  An  inner  door,  directly  facing  the 
front  door,  admits  to  a  small  square  hall  in  the  centre  of  the 
house,  which  is  dimly  lighted  by  a  lantern  in  the-  roof  in- 
visible from  below.  A  door  in  this  tiny  hall,  opposite  to 
the  parlour  door,  gives  entrance  to  a   fair-sized  scullery- 


WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  BIRTHPLACE 
(Nottingham) 


n]  PARENTAGE  21 

kitchen   at  the  back ;  a  staircase  on   the  left  descends   to 
a  dark  basement  and  ascends  to  the  two  floors  above. 

On  each  floor  there  are  two  rooms,  one  in  front  and  one 
at  the  back,  the  whole  house  being  of  an  exceedingly  narrow 
description.  The  parlour  is  some  twelve  feet  by  ten,  and 
the  room  in  which  it  is  most  probable  William  Booth  was 
born  is  of  like  dimensions.  From  the  outside,  the  house  has 
a  somewhat  dignified  appearance,  and  not  at  first  does  one 
realize  that  only  three  windows,  one  above  another,  belong 
to  the  front  door,  which  has  the  three  similar  windows  of 
the  next  house  on  its  other  side,  after  the  manner  of  a 
double- fronted  house. 

When  I  visited  12  Nottintone  Place  in  the  early  months 
of  1913,  making  bold  to  ask  if  I  might  see  the  interior  of 
No.  12,  I  found  several  pictures  of  General  Booth  hanging 
on  the  parlour  walls.  I  inquired  of  the  occupant,  who  was 
kind  enough  to  let  me  see  the  house,  whether  she  belonged 
to  the  Salvation  Army.  "  Oh,  yes,"  she  replied  with  some 
warmth;  "why,  we  owe  everything  to  the  Army!  "  Later 
she  told  me  her  story,  and  I  think  that  never  was  tale  so 
extraordinarily  apt  told  in  the  birthplace  of  a  great  man. 

Her  husband  had  been  a  cashier  for  some  years,  she 
related,  in  the  house  of  a  Newcastle  firm.  He  fell  ill,  seri- 
ously ill,  and  was  unable  to  work.  His  employer  kept  his 
place  open  for  eight  months,  and  then  felt  himself  obliged 
to  make  an  end  of  the  engagement.  (He  died,  by  the 
way,  not  long  ago  leaving  over  £400,000.)  The  clerk,  his 
wife,  and  their  six  little  children,  in  order  to  husband  their 
slender  resources  and  also  to  get  back  to  health  as  soon 
as  possible,  removed  to  a  village.  The  clerk  grew  slowly 
better  in  health,  but  his  efforts  to  find  employment  were 
unavailing.  Their  money  became  exhausted.  No  one  in 
the  place  knew  anything  about  them.  They  were  too  sen- 
sitive to  ask  for  help.  They  began  to  sell  their  furniture. 
Bit  by  bit  everything  went,  till  the  family  possessed  nothing 
on  this  earth  and  no  hope  of  anything  beyond  five  pillows. 
They  starved.  The  eyes  of  the  poor  woman  filled  with  tears  as 
she  told  me  of  that  awful  time.  "  I  shall  never  forget  those 
days,"  she  exclaimed;  "  never,  never!  We  had  just  five  pil- 
lows, that  was  all,  and  our  little  ones  were  crying  for  bread." 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

One  day  the  husband  happened  to  pick  up  a  copy  of 
perhaps  the  most  impudent  and  unworthy  journal  published 
in  London.  The  copy  contained  a  violent  attack  upon  Gen- 
eral Booth,  charging  him,  among  other  things,  with  gross 
hypocrisy,  and  asserting  that  he  did  not  spend  upon  the 
poor  and  needy  the  money  he  received  for  their  assistance. 
The  clerk,  struck  by  this  article,  spent  his  last  two  coppers 
on  two  stamps,  and  wrote  one  letter  to  General  Booth  and 
another  to  the  proprietor  of  this  paper,  telling  his  story  and 
asking  for  help. 

"  By  return  of  post,"  said  the  woman,  "  we  got  a  letter 
from  General  Booth  —  such  a  kind  letter !  —  saying  it  was 
shameful  that  a  man  with  references  such  as  my  husband's 
should  be  out  of  work,  and  telling  him  that  an  officer  would 
call  and  inquire  into  his  case  the  next  day.  We  never 
heard  from  the  paper  at  all !  But  next  day  an  officer  of 
the  Army  called;  and  the  Army  took  charge  of  my  children, 
they  gave  my  husband  work,  and  they  carried  me  off  to 
one  of  their  nursing  homes,  where  they  wouldn't  let  me  do 
a  stroke  of  work,  though  I  begged  them  to;  they  said  that 
I  must  be  nursed  back  to  health  and  strength.  It  was 
wonderful.  I  never  experienced  such  love  in  my  life.  Oh, 
how  kind  they  were !  Fancy,  not  letting  me  do  any  work, 
not  a  stroke !  Ah,  I  learnt  much  in  that  Home.  And, 
wasn't  it  a  funny  thing?  —  soon  after  they  sent  us  to  Not- 
tingham this  house  fell  vacant,  and  nothing  would  content 
my  husband,  who  had  also  been  converted  in  the  Army, 
until  we  had  taken  it.  So  here  we  are,  living  by  chance  in 
the  very  birthplace  of  the  dear  General,  all  Salvationists, 
and  my  husband  working  heart  and  soul  for  the  Army, — 
we  who  must  have  died  of  starvation  but  for  General 
Booth!" 

In  this  house,  then,  William  Booth,  the  greatest  religious 
force  of  modern  days  and  one  of  the  most  picturesque  and 
heroic  figures  of  the  nineteenth  century,  was  born  on  the 
loth  of  April,  1829  —  the  birthday  of  Grotius  and  William 
Hazlitt.  Nineteen  years  afterwards,  in  connection  with  a 
Chartist  insurrection,  the  name  of  this  day  became  a  phrase, 
"  almost  the  only  one  applied  in  England,  in  the  manner  of 
our  French  neighbours,  as  a  denomination  for  an  event  " ; 


II]  PARENTAGE  23 

but  happily,  as  the  chronicle  records,  "  the  Tenth  of  April 
remained  only  a  memory  of  an  apprehended  danger  judi- 
ciously met  and  averted." 

Two  days  after  William  Booth's  birth,  no  time  being  lost 
at  that  period  to  secure  either  immediate  regeneration  or  a 
Christian  burial  in  case  of  death,  the  infant  was  baptized 
at  Sneinton  Church.  The  entry  in  the  parish  register  reads 
as  follows: 

William,  son  of  Samuel  Booth,  Nottintone  Place,  gentleman, 
and  Mary  his  wife.  Ceremony  performed  by  George  Wilkins, 
D.D.,  Perpetual  Curate,  Vicar  of  St.  Mary's;  baptized  12th 
April,  1829. 

Samuel  Booth  is  described  by  one  who  knew  him  as 
"  tall  and  fine-looking."  He  was  noticeable  for  dressing 
in  the  fashion  of  the  Quakers,  wearing  a  drab-cloth  suit,  a 
cut-away  coat,  and  knee-breeches.  Very  little  is  known 
about  him,  and  what  is  known  only  tends  to  deepen  the 
mystery  which  appears  to  have  surrounded  him  in  life,  even 
to  his  own  children.  On  meeting  a  Sneinton  contemporary 
in  his  extreme  old  age,  the  first  greeting  of  General  Booth 
was  a  question  concerning  his  father.  "  Tell  me  something," 
he  said,  taking  his  friend's  two  hands  in  his  and  holding  them 
vigorously  in  his  own,  "about  my  father;  I  want  to  know 
about  him."  From  a  paper  he  left  behind,  as  we  shall  see, 
it  is  quite  evident  that  he  had  no  clear  notions  in  this  matter. 
He  spoke  often,  and  eloquently,  of  his  mother;  seldom  of 
his  father,  and  then  with  a  note  of  uncertainty  —  sometimes 
with  unwilling  harshness,  sometimes  with  a  too  evident 
effort  to  discover  a  virtue.  "Criminal  instincts?"  he 
exclaimed  to  me  once  in  a  discussion  on  heredity ;  "  why, 
we  have  all  got  them.  I  have  got  them.  My  father  was 
a  Grab,  a  Get.  He  had  been  born  in  poverty.  He  deter- 
mined to  grow  rich ;  and  he  did.  He  grew  very  rich,  be- 
cause he  lived  without  God  and  simply  worked  for  money; 
and  when  he  lost  it  all,  his  heart  broke  with  it,  and  he  died 
miserably.  I  have  inherited  the  Grab  from  him.  I  want 
to  get."  And  his  arm  shot  forward,  the  hand  clawing  at 
the  air,  to  signify  that  he  wanted  to  "  grab  "  souls  and  get 
for  them  the  treasure  of  eternal  life.     But  there  were  other 


24  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

occasions  when  he  sought  to  show  his  father  in  a  kinder 
light,  though  his  honesty  always  forced  him  at  the  last  to 
emphasize  the  avariciousness  and  worldliness  which  had 
embittered  his  own  childhood  and  brought  his  mother  to 
suffering  and  poverty. 

From  the  papers  and  memoranda  left  behind  by  the  son, 
it  would  be  quite  possible  to  present  two  entirely  different 
portraits  of  this  father,  the  one  almost  pleasing,  the  other 
almost  forbidding;  and  I  think  it  is  significant  of  William 
Booth's  character,  an  index  indeed  to  his  whole  life,  that 
there  should  be  this  perplexing  contradiction  in  his  very 
earliest  memories,  in  his  very  latest  judgments.  For 
William  Booth  was  always  struggling  against  the  two  anti- 
thetical qualities  of  his  nature  —  a  loving,  warm-hearted, 
generous  sympathy,  and  a  rigorous,  unsparing,  religious 
honesty.  At  one  moment  he  hungered  to  see  only  the  good 
in  human  nature ;  at  the  next,  he  was  stung  to  a  passionate 
indignation  by  its  badness  —  its  deadness  to  God.  In  his 
generous  moods  he  would  speak  with  a  broad  and  embrac- 
ing charity,  a  large  and  kindly  tolerance  of  mankind ;  in 
his  moods  of  realism  and  intellectual  honesty  he  could  not 
find  words  sharp  and  piercing  enough  for  the  evil  of  the 
world. 

It  is  also  necessary  to  keep  in  mind,  not  only  as  touching 
his  memories  of  his  father  and  mother,  but  also  in  many 
other  matters  where  his  statements  are  under  review,  that 
William  Booth  belonged  to  a  period  when  phrases  were 
adopted  without  analysis  and  language  was  often  used  with 
an  uncritical  liberty.  I  have  been  over  many  of  the  re- 
ligious magazines  of  the  period,  and  studied  numerous  ser- 
mons by  preachers  of  some  standing  at  that  time,  and  in 
numerous  instances  I  have  been  struck,  occasionally  shocked, 
by  the  intellectual  poverty,  the  rhetorical  bombast,  and  the 
disagreeable  sanctimoniousness  which  characterized  much 
of  the  religious  writing  and  preaching  of  that  generation. 
William  Booth  never  used  a  cant  phraseology;  he  was  one 
of  the  most  honest,  downright,  and  straightforward  men  that 
ever  lived ;  but  in  his  impatience  to  be  at  work  saving  the 
lost  and  rescuing  the  sorrowful,  he  did  permit  himself  to 
use  whatever  language  came  quickest  to  his  service,  and 


n]  PARENTAGE  25 

seldom,  I  think,  possibly  never,  set  himself  to  acquire  a  nice 
carefulness  in  his  terms,  a  judicious  and  a  critical  handling 
of  the  current  phraseology. 

"  My  father,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "  appears  to  have 
been  a  man  of  considerable  force  of  character  —  of  a  high 
spirit,  and  a  noble  sense  of  truth  and  honour,  combined  with 
a  strong  desire  to  get  on  in  the  world."  In  another  place 
he  says  that  his  father  "  knew  no  greater  gain  or  end  than 
money  .  .  .  used  to  task  my  patience  to  the  utmost  capacity 
by  making  me  read  to  him  .  .  .  early  part  of  his  life  spent 
in  making  money,  latter  part  in  losing  it  ...  a  very  un- 
satisfactory life."  And  speaking  of  his  own  childhood  he 
says  that  he  never  received  any  help  from  his  father,  and 
declares  that  his  early  days  were  "  blighted  and  made  more 
or  less  wretched  "  by  the  ruinous  condition  of  his  father's 
affairs. 

When  he  said  that  his  father  possessed  "  a  noble  sense 
of  truth  and  honour,"  he  was  no  doubt  thinking  of  how 
Samuel  Booth  "  became  a  bondsman,  for  a  considerable 
amount,  for  a  tradesman,  who  afterwards  became  bank- 
rupt, and  left  him  to  pay  the  money,  which  he  did,  every 
farthing."  "  The  punctual  discharge  of  this  liability,"  says 
William  Booth,  "  precipitated  the  breakdown  of  his  fortune. 
It  was  the  last  feather."  In  recalling  this  act,  evidently  at 
a  generous  moment,  he  seized  the  opportunity  to  speak  of 
his  father  in  such  a  manner  as  clouded  out  the  sadder 
qualities. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  moments  of  strict  and  courageous 
honesty,  eager  to  impress  upon  men  the  danger  of  a  life 
devoted  to  money-getting,  he  forgot  the  act  which  he  could 
praise,  and  thrust  forward,  chiefly  as  a  warning  to  others, 
only  those  miseries  and  deprivations  which  his  father's 
avarice  had  inflicted  upon  his  mother,  his  sisters,  and 
himself. 

One  judges  from  these  statements,  when  they  are  brought 
into  relation  with  the  impression  made  upon  other  people 
by  those  early  days  in  the  Booth  family,  that  Samuel  Booth 
was  a  man  of  business,  honest  where  the  law  was  concerned, 
just  in  his  dealings,  but  with  little  conscience  in  his  specu- 
lations; a  man  rather  silent,  selfish,  and  unfriendlv;  in  his 


26  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

later  years  not  kind  to  children,  not  interested  in  his  family; 
dead  to  culture,  indifferent  to  society,  careless  of  religion. 

William  Booth's  notes  about  his  father  suggest  other 
qualities.     I  find,  for  instance,  these  disjointed  memoranda: 

Incident  to  show  his  enterprise.  The  purpose  of  his  life  to 
get  money.  Character.  Perseverance.  Enterprise.  Schemes : 
Enlisting  militia  in  the  large  towns.  Shipping  crockery  to  Hol- 
land. Advice  to  me  against  partnership.  No  scholar.  His 
schooling  very  short.  Expelled  the  school  because  on  some 
occasion  put  his  schoolmaster  to  shame  by  reckoning  faster  with 
his  head  than  he,  the  schoolmaster,  did  with  his  slate.  This 
capacity  was  remarkably  developed.  Religiously  blind.  Never 
remember  him  in  a  place  of  worship.  Insisted  on  our  regular 
attendance  at  church.     No  concern  until  his  last  illness. 

Elsewhere  he  says : 

He  began  his  acquisitive  career  when  but  a  child,  and  in 
many  ways,  and  for  many  years  persevered  in  it,  until  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  together  a  considerable  fortune,  which  he 
invested  mostly  in  tenement  house  property.  By  this  he 
reckoned  on  having  done  a  good  thing  for  his  family.  When  I 
was  born  he  was  looked  upon  as  a  gentleman  and  was  spoken  of 
by  that  designation  by  the  people  about  him.  But  about  the 
date  of  my  birth,  bad  times  set  in,  heavy  losses  followed  one  on 
the  heels  of  the  other,  making  in  early  days  a  season  of  mortifi- 
cation and  misery. 

There  is  very  much  the  same  difficulty  when  we  come 
to  his  remembrance  of  his  mother.  At  one  moment  he 
speaks  of  her  in  a  manner  that  contradicts  the  memory  of 
one  who  remembers  her  in  his  childhood,  and  would  almost 
persuade  one  to  think  that  Mary  Booth  had  been  to  him 
the  most  gracious,  helpful,  and  perfect  mother.  In  this  case, 
we  think,  the  contradiction  arises  not  only  from  William 
Booth's  natural  anxiety,  in  his  most  generous  moments,  to 
dwell  upon  only  the  good  and  beautiful  side  of  his  mother, 
but  from  his  seeing  in  the  Mary  Booth  of  later  life  the  Mary 
Booth  of  his  tragic  childhood. 

It  appears  to  me  quite  evident  that  William  Booth's  child- 
hood was  unhappy.  I  think  he  got  no  help  at  all  from  his 
father,  and  very  little  encouragement  from  his  mother. 
Mary  Booth  appears  to  have  been  absorbed  during  the  whole 
of  her  married  life  in  the  anxieties  and  disasters  of  her 
husband's  speculations.     She  seems  to  have  felt  her  poverty 


ii]  PARENTAGE  27 

acutely,  and  to  have  shrunk  from  the  world  in  consequence. 
She  worked  for  her  children,  she  nursed  her  husband  in  his 
last  illness,  she  did  all  she  could  to  avert  the  final  catastrophe 
of  ruin;  but  she  was  a  sombre,  sad,  silent,  and  tragic  figure 
in  that  threatened  home.  William  Booth  says  that  he  got  no 
help,  as  regards  school  work,  in  his  home.  He  says  that  no 
one  told  him  anything  about  religion.  He  speaks  of  his 
early  days  as  "  a  season  of  mortification  and  misery."  He 
makes  it  clear  that  his  childhood  was  dark  and  unhappy. 

But  when  he  comes,  later  in  life,  to  write  of  his  mother, 
it  is  as  if  he  were  describing  an  angel : 

I  had  a  good  mother.  So  good  she  has  ever  appeared  to  me 
that  I  have  often  said  that  all  I  know  of  her  life  seemed  a  strik- 
ing contradiction  of  the  doctrine  of  human  depravity.  In  my 
youth  I  fully  accepted  that  doctrine,  and  I  do  not  deny  it  now ; 
but  my  patient,  self-sacrificing  mother  always  appeared  to  be 
an  exception  to  the  rule.  I  loved  my  mother.  From  infancy  to 
manhood  I  lived  in  her.  Home  was  not  home  to  me  without 
her.  I  do  not  remember  any  single  act  of  wilful  disobedience 
to  her  wishes.  When  my  father  died  I  was  so  passionately 
attached  to  my  mother  that  I  can  recollect  that,  deeply  though 
I  felt  his  loss,  my  grief  was  all  but  forbidden  by  the  thought 
that  it  was  not  my  mother  who  had  been  taken  from  me.  And 
yet  one  of  the  regrets  that  has  followed  me  to  the  present  hour 
is  that  I  did  not  sufficiently  value  the  treasure  while  I  possessed 
it,  and  that  I  did  not  with  sufficient  tenderness  and  assiduity, 
at  the  time,  attempt  the  impossible  task  of  repaying  the  im- 
measurable debt  I  owed  to  that  mother's  love. 

It  is  plain  that  the  Mary  Booth  who  overawed  her  daugh- 
ter's only  friend  —  as  we  shall  see  presently  —  who  shrank 
from  the  world,  who  invited  nobody  to  her  house,  who  v^-as 
silent  and  frightening,  and  "  like  a  duchess,"  did  not  become 
the  Mary  Booth  of  her  son's  glowing  tribute  until  after  the 
death  of  her  husband,  when  the  end  was  reached  of  the 
long  and  dreadful  tension  wrought  by  impending  calamity 
which  had  ruined  her  married  life.  She  was,  doubtless, 
kind  to  her  children,  but  in  their  earliest  years  she  was 
clearly  not  a  mother  who  watched  over  their  education, 
sought  their  innermost  confidence,  and  deepened  their  sense 
of  religion.  "  She  had  no  time  to  attend  to  me,"  is  one  of 
William  Booth's  confessions.     Afterwards,  no  doubt,  when 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  crisis  was  over  and  the  ruin  had  come,  she  came  out 
from  the  cloud,  and  shone  upon  their  Hves  with  a  beauty  and 
a  warmth  and  a  sohcitude  which  wakened  her  son's  grati- 
tude. But  it  is  clear  from  the  evidence,  and  important  to 
remember,  that  William  Booth's  earliest  years  were  dark 
and  sorrowful,  and  that  in  spite  of  a  kind  mother  he  went 
hungry  and  thirsty  for  something  that  was  never  given. 

Ann  Booth's  only  girl  friend  was  a  Miss  Sarah  Butler, 
now  Mrs.  Osborne,  who  is  still  living  at  a  great  age  —  she 
was  two  years  older  than  General  Booth  —  and  happily  for 
herself,  and  this  history,  with  all  her  faculties  unimpaired. 
She  tells  me  that  there  was  always  a  mystery  about  Samuel 
Booth.  Mystery,  she  says,  pervaded  the  whole  house.  Ann 
was  sent  to  the  best  ladies'  school  in  Nottingham,  but  she 
made  no  friends  there  except  Sarah  Butler,  and  Sarah 
Butler  tells  me  that  on  no  occasion  when  she  visited  the 
family  did  she  encounter  another  visitor.  "  They  gave  me 
the  impression,  even  as  a  girl,"  she  says,  "  of  a  very  proud 
and  very  reserved  family  who  felt  their  position  acutely, 
and  wished  to  keep  to  themselves.  Ann  sometimes  spoke 
to  me  of  her  parents'  former  home  near  Colston  Bassett. 
giving  me  to  understand  from  her  mother's  description  of 
it  that  it  was  a  'very  beautiful  place.'  She  never  men- 
tioned her  father.  I  scarcely  ever  saw  him,  but  I  know  that 
he  made  no  friends  in  the  town." 

Mary  Booth,  the  mother  of  the  evangelist,  is  described 
by  Ann's  friend  as  "  a  tall,  proud  woman  —  very  proud  and 
austere."  She  was  handsome,  dignified,  and  splendid; 
some  one  describing  her  as  "  like  a  duchess."  Her  eyes  are 
said  to  have  been  very  remarkable,  and  her  portrait  even 
in  old  age  confirms  this  memory.  "  She  had  the  most  won- 
derful eyes,"  says  Ann's  friend,  "  the  most  piercing  eyes  I 
ever  saw.  You  could  tell  when  she  ivas  looking  at  yon! " 
But  she,  too,  appears  to  have  been  reserved  and  silent.  "  I 
never  remember  her  speaking  to  me  all  the  years  I  knew  her 
and  called  at  her  house,"  says  this  one  remaining  friend  of 
the  family.  "  Very  often  when  I  went  to  call  for  Ann  she 
would  open  the  door  to  me ;  and  she  would  stand  aside  for 
me  to  enter,  close  the  door,  and  then  pointing  to  a  chair  in 
the  parlour,   say,   '  Sit  down,   my  dear,'   quite  kindly  but 


ii]  PARENTAGE  29 

without  any  friendliness  or  any  attempt  at  intimacy,  going 
out  to  send  Ann  to  me,  and  not  returning  to  bid  me  good-bye. 
She  was  not  so  great  a  mystery  to  me  as  Ann's  father,  but 
I  was  always  in  dread  of  her,  and  felt  that  she  was  different 
from  other  people.  I  am  quite  certain  that  Ann  felt  the 
same  thing  about  her.  She  never  liked  to  talk  about  either 
of  them.  There  was  something  about  the  family  which 
puzzled  me,  and  puzzles  me  still." 

This  effect  produced  upon  the  child's  mind  seems  to  have 
had  no  other  origin  than  in  the  reserve  natural  to  many 
people  who  come  down  in  the  world.  The  Booths  had  been 
well  off;  they  were  now  reduced  to  poverty;  they  desired 
that  as  few  people  as  possible  should  know  of  their  con- 
dition. 

Ann  Booth,  according  to  the  same  authority,  was  a  very 
sweet,  amiable,  and  gentle  creature.  But  she  was  shy  and 
never  made  friends  at  school.  She  took  after  her  mother 
and  was  good-looking.  She  always  had  a  smile  in  her  eyes, 
and  spoke  in  a  gentle  voice,  rather  timorously.  She  adored 
her  brother  William,  as  did  the  other  sisters,  and  in  his 
youth  exercised  some  control  over  him,  but  she  was  not 
in  any  way  a  favourite  sister.  That  William  Booth  returned 
this  love  of  his  sisters,  and  never  forgot  their  devotion,  is 
attested  by  the  fact  that  on  calling  to  see  Mrs.  Osborne  in 
his  old  age  he  quite  begged  her  to  go  and  see  his  married 
sister,  Mrs.  Newell,  making  this  request  almost  the  object 
of  his  visit,  saying  that  it  was  the  one  favour  he  had  to  ask 
her.  "  She  is  lonely,"  he  said ;  "  she  is  sometimes  sad ;  it 
will  be  a  great  kindness  if  you  go  and  see  her."  It  is  inter- 
esting to  know  that  at  one  time  people  in  the  neighbourhood 
thought  that  William  Booth  would  marry  a  sister  of  Sarah 
Butler,  who  shared  his  religious  enthusiasms,  was  some- 
times consulted  by  him,  and  to  whom  he  showed  more  atten- 
tion than  was  his  custom  to  the  other  devotees  who  attended 
his  earliest  meetings. 

At  the  back  of  the  house  in  Nottintone  Place,  as  we  have 
already  said,  and  pressing  close  up  to  the  backyard,  were 
dwellings  occupied  by  framework  knitters.  These  houses 
are  standing  at  the  present  day,  and  throughout  the  modern 
streets  of  Sneinton  and  Nottingham  similar  houses  are  still 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

to  be  seen.  They  are  two-storied,  red-bricked  dwelling 
houses,  topped  by  a  working  story  which  gives  them  their 
peculiar  character  and  makes  them  easily  recognizable.  In- 
stead of  the  ordinary  square  or  oblong  windows  of  the  two 
lower  floors,  the  windows  of  this  upper  story  are  of  greater 
breadth  than  height,  and  are  usually  glazed  with  more  or 
less  opaque  glass.  Behind  these  windows  William  Booth 
would  have  seen  from  his  earliest  years  the  dim  spectral 
figures  of  stockingers  at  their  frames  and  have  heard  all 
day  long  the  noise  of  the  machines  —  hockety  —  Jwcketv  — 
shee,  hockety  —  hockety  —  shee.  On  one  side  of  his 
house  were  the  decent,  pleasant,  and  somewhat  pretentious 
villas  of  a  suburban  terrace  —  very  quiet,  sleepy,  uneventful; 
at  the  back,  those  dismal,  noisy  tenements  of  the  workers, 
who  so  often  starved  and  so  frequently  filled  the  streets  with 
the  clamour  of  incipient  revolution.  It  was  indeed  a  case  in 
this  house  of  a  "  Queen  Anne  front  and  a  Mary  Ann  back," 

When  the  family  lost  money,  they  moved  to  a  broader 
street  but  a  poorer  neighbourhood.  Opposite  to  the  new 
home  in  Sneinton  Road,  the  site  of  which  is  now  occupied 
by  a  picture  palace,  was  a  smallware  shop,  kept  by  a  remark- 
able old  man  called  Grandfather  Page,  and  on  one  side  of 
this  shop  was  a  narrow  entry  leading  to  a  backyard  which 
contained  a  slaughter-house.  At  every  turn  there  were 
dingy  habitations  occupied  by  weavers ;  traffic  passed  con- 
tinually to  and  from  the  market-place;  numerous  public- 
houses  hung  their  signs  over  the  uneven  pavements;  in 
every  way  it  was  a  move  for  the  worse,  another  come- 
down in  the  world. 

Some  way  up  this  road,  and  not  far  from  Nottintone 
Place,  was  The  Paul  Pry  Inn,  which  still  swings  its  sign, 
bearing  the  legend  /  hope  I  don't  intrude.  A  young  lover, 
after  parting  from  his  sweetheart  late  one  night,  was  in 
so  fervorous  a  mood  of  happiness  that  soon  after  passing  this 
inn,  all  shuttered  and  asleep,  he  threw  his  stick  into  the 
air  and  accidentally  broke  one  of  the  upper  windows  in  the 
private  house  next  door  —  the  noise  causing  a  momentary 
panic.  His  apologies,  however,  were  accepted,  and  his 
excuse  was  considered  more  than  adequate ;  but  the  story 
spread  throughout  the  district  and  caused  a  good  deal  of 


n]  PARENTAGE  31 

amusement  at  the  cost  of  emotionalism.  Another  and  more 
tragic  incident  occurred  close  to  the  second  house  of  William 
Booth.  A  number  of  boys  were  playing  in  the  streets  with 
oyster  shells,  and  one  of  them  flinging  a  shell  harder  than  he 
intended  struck  a  man  in  the  face,  cutting  out  his  right  eye. 

William  Booth,  from  the  very  first,  was  a  ringleader  and 
a  captain  among  his  fellows,  "  Wilful  Will  "  was  his  nick- 
name, and  a  very  old  lady,  who  perfectly  remembers  him 
at  this  time,  said  to  me  with  considerable  decision,  "  Billy 
w'as  always  rather  forward  —  not  aggressive,  not  violent, 
you  understand,  but  forward ;  —  yes,  Billy  was  a  forward 
lad."  He  was  noticeable  in  appearance  by  reason  of  his 
long  legs  and  his  long  nose.  His  friends  spoke  of  his  nose 
as  "  the  Wellington."  In  the  game  of  soldiers,  a  game 
which  he  played  in  his  childhood  more  than  any  other,  he 
was  usually  "  the  captain  " — an  omen,  perhaps,  of  his  after 
life.  In  spite  of  physical  delicacy  —  he  was  outgrowing  his 
strength  —  he  appears  to  have  been  a  leader  in  games  and 
a  boy  of  remarkable  spirit. 

Grandfather  Page,  who  kept  the  smallware  shop  in 
Sneinton  Road,  remembered  Samuel  Booth  striding  into 
his  premises  one  day  demanding  a  cane.  "  I'm  going,"  he 
announced,  "  to  give  my  son  the  best  hiding  he  ever  had  in 
his  life."  Grandfather  Page,  who  exercised  a  wonderful 
religious  influence  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  who  seems  to 
have  been  a  most  amiable  and  gracious  person,  replied  to 
this  announcement :  "  Mr.  Booth,  you  must  not  strike  your 
son  while  you  are  in  this  temper.  You  are  in  no  fit  mood  to 
punish  a  child.  You  must  wait  till  your  anger  is  gone." 
Samuel  Booth  bridled  his  rage,  returned  to  his  house,  and 
said  to  William,  "  You  may  go  and  thank  old  Mr.  Page 
for  saving  you  from  a  good  hiding."  What  the  offence  of 
William  had  been  we  do  not  know;  but  one  perceives  that 
he  had  spirit  enough  to  aggravate  and  perhaps  to  withstand 
a  father  who  inspired  almost  everybody  with  a  sense  of 
awe  and  who  was  choleric  in  his  bouts  of  rheumatism. 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  the  old  man  who  saved 
William  Booth  from  a  flogging,  and  whose  influence  on  his 
life  is  nowhere  recorded,  had  already  in  those  days  started 
a  system  of  religious  services  in  the  slums.     This  Mr.  Page 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

had  been  a  rich  man,  a  racing  man,  and  a  lover  of  wrestling. 
On  his  conversion  he  surrendered  his  business  to  his  sons, 
and  lived  with  great  simplicity,  devoting  all  his  time  to 
religious  work.  But,  to  the  surprise  of  every  one,  quite  late 
in  life  he  fell  in  love  with  a  young  girl  in  his  Sunday  school 
and  married  her.  In  order  to  support  the  new  family  that 
came  to  him,  the  old  man  took  a  humble  smallware  shop 
in  Sneinton,  and  there  made  his  home.  He  had  a  garden 
far  away  from  the  house,  being  a  great  lover  of  flowers,  and 
in  this  garden  was  a  summer-house  where  he  made  tea  for 
himself  and  sat  meditating  on  religion.  Later  in  life  one  of 
his  rich  sons  by  the  first  marriage  sent  a  carriage  to  the 
smallware  shop  every  afternoon,  and  the  old  man  would 
drive  up  to  his  garden.  When  he  became  blind  a  rope  was 
slung  across  the  garden  path,  and  he  would  walk  to  and  fro 
among  the  flowers  he  could  no  longer  see,  singing  hymns, 
and  guiding  himself  by  a  sliding  hand-support  on  the  rope. 
He  used  to  say,  "  I  have  been  walking  by  faith  for  over 
forty  years,  and  have  not  known  what  it  is  to  have  a  gloomy 
hour."  He  worked  among  "  the  neglected,  the  sick,  and 
the  sorrowful,"  started  a  ragged  school  in  the  slums,  and 
prayer-meetings  in  the  cottages  of  the  poor.  During  race- 
meetings  he  stood  at  the  roadside  distributing  tracts. 

William  Booth,  although  he  makes  no  mention  of 
Grandfather  Page,  was  perhaps  influenced  by  that  gentle 
and  unselfish  life,  for  the  old  man  was  regarded  as  a  charac- 
ter, and  lived  exactly  opposite  the  Booths'  house  in  Sneinton 
Road.  When  William  Booth  crossed  the  road  to  thank 
this  old  man  for  saving  him  from  chastisement,  there  was 
probably  a  conversation,  or  a  few  words,  which  may  have 
left  some  impression.  In  any  case  it  is  certain  that  William 
Booth  must  often  have  heard  in  boyhood  of  the  strange 
work  which  Grandfather  Page  was  doing  so  effectually  in 
the  slums  of  Nottingham. 

He  played  hockey  in  the  streets  with  a  wooden  nog,  much 
to  the  annoyance  of  the  village  constable,  who  was  a  cobbler ; 
he  entered  into  the  fun  of  Plough  Alondays,  when  men 
dressed  up  in  ox-skins  with  horns  on  their  heads  went  about 
the  town  thrusting  their  faces  into  doorways  and  windows 


n]  PARENTAGE  33 

demanding  money  —  very  much  after  the  fashion  of 
Mussulmen  during  the  feast  of  Mohurrum.  Later  he  took 
to  reading  the  poetry  of  Kirke  White,  to  devouring  three- 
volume  novels,  and  to  fishing  —  some  one  remembering  how 
he  once  exploded  with  rage  at  the  breaking  of  his  rod.  He 
may  have  seen  the  prize-fighter  Bendigo  —  who  was  the 
brother  of  a  well-known  optician  in  the  town  —  walking 
about  the  streets;  a  son  of  Grandfather  Page,  who  once 
spoke  to  Bendigo  when  the  mighty  man  was  fishing  in  the 
Trent,  became  in  consequence  a  hero  among  his  mates. 
One  may  be  quite  certain  that  "  Wilful  Will  "  shared  in  all 
the  games  and  excitements  of  Sneinton  boys,  and  that  he 
spent  as  much  time  as  any  of  them  in  the  market,  in  the 
fields,  and  on  the  riverside,  having  little  love  for  the  home 
which  was  dark  with  misery  and  oppressive  with  the  sense 
of  ruin.  His  ardent,  passionate,  and  impulsive  nature 
made  him  a  leader  among  his  companions,  and  looking 
back  on  those  days,  when  there  was  no  religious  in- 
fluence on  his  character,  no  restraining  hand  upon  his 
tendencies,  and  no  attempt  of  any  kind  to  shape  him 
noblv,  he  exclaimed,  "  I  have  often  wondered  I  did  not  go 
straight  to  hell." 

But  his  faults  were  evidently  of  no  very  serious  nature, 
for  he  was  able  to  declare  with  a  good  conscience,  "  I  have 
heard  my  mother  say  that  I  never  caused  her  an  hour's  real 
anxiety  in  her  life."  It  would  seem  that  his  chief  depriva- 
tion lay  in  the  absence  from  his  childhood  of  any  high  and 
gracious  influence,  with  the  consequent  danger  that  he  might 
drift  into  a  dull  and  useless  manhood,  if  not  into  actual 
wickedness. 

Here  was  a  child  of  fiery  temper  and  impetuous  will  grow- 
ing up  without  definite  guidance,  forming  his  own  opinions 
from  the  chaos  of  ideas  which  presented  themselves  without 
explanation  to  his  mind,  seeking  adventure  with  the  most 
spirited  boys  of  his  acquaintance,  taking  the  lead  in  every 
game  and  every  device  for  killing  time  which  these  com- 
panions could  hit  upon,  and  hating  more  than  anything  else 
on  earth  the  black,  unmoving  cloud  that  darkened  the  dul- 
ness  of  his  home.     What  could  come  of  such  a  childhood? 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH    [chap.hI 

What  could  the  Nottingham  of  that  epoch  make  of  this 
young  citizen?  One  does  not  see  the  necessity  for  going 
"  straight  to  hell " ;  but  very  devious,  obscure,  and  improb- 
able at  present  is  the  path  to  glory. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHICH    TELLS    OF    A    DIFFICULT    ROAD    LEADING    UP 
TO    A    YOUTHFUL    CONVERSION 

1838-1844 

"  Ce  qu'on  dit  de  soi,"  says  Renan,  "  est  toujours  poesie." 
He  would  have  us  believe  that  a  man  only  writes  of  "  such 
things  " —  his  childhood  and  the  least  details  of  his  private 
life  —  in  order  to  transmit  to  others  his  theory  of  the  uni- 
verse. He  applauds  Goethe  for  having  chosen  as  the  title 
of  his  memoirs,  Verite  et  Poesie;  for,  according  to  his  thesis, 
autobiography,  like  biography,  must  of  necessity  partake  of 
both  truth  and  imagination. 

William  Booth,  a  less  reflective  and  infinitely  more  active 
man  than  Renan,  had  no  ambition  to  write  the  story  of  his 
life.  He  was  entirely  innocent  of  that  miserable  conceit  — 
mesquine  vanitc  —  of  which  Renan  complains.  He  was 
urged  by  others  at  the  extremity  of  his  age  to  set  his  mem- 
ories on  paper,  and  with  much  annoyance  and  a  great  deal  of 
grunting  half-humorous  disapproval,  the  old.  worn,  weary, 
and  near-blind  prophet,  bowed  down  by  the  business  of 
the  world,  essayed  this  most  difficult  task  —  a  task  only 
possible  of  success,  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  an  exact  thinker, 
like  Stuart  Mill  or  Herbert  Spencer,  or  a  morbid  and 
brilliant  egoist,  like  Rousseau. 

The  result  is  deplorable,  more  deplorable  even  than  "  the 
dim,  disastrous  details  "  contained  in  the  famous  Paper  Bags 
of  Professor  Teufelsdrockh.  Confusion  is  everywhere,  and 
not  only  the  confusion  justly  attributable  to  the  fact  that 
these  attempts  at  autobiography  had  been  used  by  other 
people  before  they  came  into  the  hands  of  the  present  writer. 
One  encounters  at  the  outset  a  scornful  indifference  to 
chronology;  unbridgeable  voids  of  silence  at  those  very 
junctures  where  meticulous  narrative  is  essential ;  a  welter 
of  propagandist  eloquence  and  octogenarian  reflection  where 

35 


36  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

a  single  incident  or  one  clear,  natural  phrase  would  be  in- 
valuable ;  and  throughout  this  dismembered  and  amorphous 
scrap-book  of  memory  there  is  a  spirit  of  revolt,  the  writer 
struggling  to  escape  from  himself  to  the  work  that  was 
more  to  him  than  life. 

Unfortunately,  because  he  could  not  think  himself  out  of 
the  language  of  religious  fervour,  he  exemplifies  the  truth 
of  Kenan's  epigram,  that  what  a  man  says  of  himself  is 
always  poetry.  In  his  case  there  was  no  patient  stooping 
of  the  ear  to  catch  from  the  deepest  fathoms  of  his  heart 
trembling  vibrations  from  the  sea-buried  city  of  his  child- 
hood —  the  bells  of  those  faery  churches  still  calling  to  wor- 
ship the  faithful  who  could  no  longer  hear  them.  Rather 
was  he  a  much  busied  man  of  affairs,  practical  and  impa- 
tient, hard-headed  and  beset  with  a  thousand  troubles,  who  in 
a  hurried  moment  seized  upon  his  past  with  a  violence  which 
at  once  scared  and  scattered  delicate  memories  to  the  four 
winds  of  heaven,  and  began  at  once  to  expound  his  theory 
of  the  universe  from  the  cradle  to  the  satchel,  and  from  the 
satchel  to  the  shop-counter. 

It  would  seem,  though  I  can  find  no  confirmation  else- 
where, that  during  William  Booth's  infancy  the  family  re- 
moved for  a  time  to  Bleasby,  where  Samuel  Booth  appar- 
ently attempted  to  make  money  at  "  fancy  farming." 
William  Booth  says  that  he  learned  his  letters  at  the  village 
school,  and  was  presently  sent  to  a  boarding-school  at  South- 
well, the  favourite  residence  of  his  namesake  the  fifty-first 
Archbishop  of  York.  At  six  years  of  age  the  family  re- 
turned to  Nottingham,  and  the  boy,  who  was  encouraged  to 
believe  that  he  had  a  gentleman's  prospect  before  him,  was 
sent  to  a  good  school  kept  by  a  Mr.  Biddulph.  Ann,  it  will 
be  remembered,  w^as  learning  to  be  a  young  lady  at  the  best 
ladies'  school  in  Nottingham. 

William  Booth  has  nothing  good  to  say  of  Biddulph's 
School.  "  No  stimulus,"  is  his  laconic  judgment.  But  his 
father  had  determined  that  he  should  be  a  gentleman; 
Biddulph's  School  was  the  select  academy  of  Nottingham, 
and  to  Biddulph's  School  therefore  he  had  to  go.  He  com- 
plains, "  Mr.  Biddulph  never  fairly  woke  up  my  ambition 
to  learn  until  the  year  before  leaving."     He  records  a  break- 


ni]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  37 

down  in  his  health  with  the  explanation,  "  school  hours  too 
long." 

He  remembers  signing  the  pledge  at  six  or  seven  years 
of  age.  He  kept  it  — "  no  teetotal  friend  near  me  " —  until 
he  was  thirteen,  when  his  mother,  who  believed,  in  common 
with  nearly  everybody  else  who  passed  at  that  time  for  a 
sensible  person,  in  the  health-giving  virtue  of  beer,  insisted 
upon  her  delicate  son  taking  alcohol  as  "  medicine." 

During  his  schooldays  there  was  a  serious  crisis  in  his 
father's  affairs.  Mrs.  Booth  had  to  take  a  journey  to 
Derby  and  Ashbourne  to  see  some  mysterious  gentleman, 
probably  to  gain  assistance  for  her  husband.  She  took 
William  on  this  journey;  and  he  writes  of  that  event: 
"  Walk  to  Ashbourne.  Coach  gone.  Walk  of  eleven  miles. 
Last  mile  an  hour.  Gentleman  not  to  be  moved."  A 
dismal  journey  for  a  young  child,  the  memory  ineffaceable 
at  eighty  years. 

There  was  no  religious  atmosphere  in  his  home  at  this 
time,  but  the  children  were  sent  on  Sunday  to  the  parish 
church  of  Sneinton.  William  Booth  was  not  attracted  by 
the  services;  they  gave  him  little  notion  of  religion  and  its 
relation  to  the  soul.  But  he  remembers  the  clergyman, 
who  was  something  of  a  character,  and  perhaps,  in  the 
social  sense  of  the  word,  the  only  gentleman  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood. 

Parson  Wyatt  was  a  tall,  dark-haired,  solemn-visaged, 
ruminative  man,  who  jerked  his  head  as  he  walked,  and 
moved  about  his  parish,  chin  to  breast,  lost  in  remote 
reflection.  He  was  thought  to  be  a  Puseyite,  and  there  was 
opposition  in  the  parish  to  his  innovations.  But  a  certain 
Wesleyan  minister  remembers  him  as  a  sincere  and  a  good 
man,  one  who  was  friendly  with  the  dissenters  of  his  day, 
and  a  clergyman  who  truly  and  earnestly  sought  to  do  his 
duty.  William  Booth  himself  says  that  this  Mr.  Wyatt 
was  "  no  doubt  a  good  man  according  to  his  light,"  adding, 
however,  the  characteristic  judgment : 

But  his  rueful  countenance  and  icy  manner  all  seemed  to  say 
that  his  performances  meant — "Do  as  I  advise,  or  not;  be 
what  the  prayers  have  asked  that  you  might  be,  or  not ;  do 
what  the  Scriptures  have  said,  or  not  —  it  docs  not  matter  very 


38  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

much  whether  you  comply  with  these  requirements  or  not." 
He  may  have  felt  a  great  deal  more  than  this,  but  it  did  not 
make  any  very  great  impression  upon  my  boyish  mind,  and,  so 
far  as  I  can  remember,  I  do  not  think  that  the  bulk  of  the  con- 
gregation were  ever  carried  very  much  further  by  what  he  said. 

It  is  of  course  extremely  doubtful  whether  the  boy  felt 
any  more  need  for  religious  instruction  than  the  schoolboy 
of  Anatole  France  who  invented  sins  in  order  to  satisfy  his 
confessor : — "  The  first  difficulty  is  to  find  them.  You  may 
perhaps  believe  me  when  I  tell  you  that,  when  I  was  ten,  I 
did  not  possess  the  gift  of  self -analysis  in  a  sufficiently 
marked  degree  to  enable  me  to  make  a  thorough  examina- 
tion of  my  inner  consciousness."  William  Booth  was  no 
doubt  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  ministrations  of  Parson 
Wyatt  at  the  time,  using  the  church  railings  for  thrusting 
his  head  through  —  the  game  consisting  in  getting  it  back 
again  —  playing  in  the  churchyard,  looking  about  him 
during  the  services,  and  only  voting  it  a  considerable  bore 
that  he  had  to  attend  these  religious  services  at  all.  It 
was  not,  perhaps,  until  much  later  in  his  life  that  he  became 
aware  of  Parson  Wyatt's  deficiencies. 

But  he  did  become  aware,  even  as  a  child,  of  something 
lacking  in  his  own  life.  His  first  religious  impressions  came 
from  one  of  his  cousins,  a  Methodist  named  Gregory,  who 
was  a  humble  shoemaker,  William  Booth  was  struck  by 
this  man's  "  separate  and  spiritual  life."  On  one  occasion 
Gregory  said  to  him,  "  Willie  Booth,  do  you  know  that  re- 
ligion is  something  that  comes  to  you  from  outside  of  you?  " 
This  idea  haunted  the  boy,  and  repeating  it  later  on  to  his 
minister,  he  was  told  that  he  would  soon  be  teaching  in 
the  Sunday  school !  He  remembers,  too,  that  a  great  im- 
pression was  made  upon  his  mind  by  the  singing  in  Sunday 
school  of  the  hymn,  Here  we  suffer  grief  and  pain;  the  idea 
oppressed  him  and  gave  a  new  turn  to  his  thoughts.  His 
cousin's  persistent  religiousness  made  him  later  on  "  a  sort 
of  teacher  " ;  and  this,  he  says,  was  "  an  altogether  new  in- 
fluence." But  he  complains,  even  after  this  beginning,  that 
no  one  ever  spoke  to  him  about  the  spiritual  life.  "  I  do 
not  remember,"  he  says,  "  a  direct  word  about  my  soul  — 
the  necessity  and  possibility  of  my  being  converted  —  or  of 


in]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  39 

encouragement  being  spoken  to  me  up  to  the  date  of  my 
conversion,  and  very  few  afterwards." 

His  father,  he  says,  was  "  religiously  blind  "  ;  his  mother's 
moral  instruction  in  those  years  was,  "  Be  good,  William, 
and  all  will  be  well."  Parson  Wyatt  never  spoke  a  direct 
word  to  him ;  no  one,  not  even  Cousin  Gregory  in  the  Sun- 
day school,  ever  attempted  to  get  at  the  innermost  privacy 
of  his  soul.  The  first  faint  beginning  of  that  revolution 
in  his  personality  which  was  to  have  so  wide  and  wonderful 
an  effect  for  mankind  was  simply  a  feeling  in  his  childish 
consciousness  that  Cousin  Gregory  lived  a  separate  and 
spiritual  life.  He  does  not  go  back  for  his  first  religious  im- 
pressions to  a  prayer  learned  at  his  mother's  knee,  but  to  an 
indefinable,  incommunicable  reverence  in  his  mind  arisincf 
from  contact  with  a  humble  shoemaker  who,  though  he  said 
little  to  the  boy  in  a  personal  or  direct  way,  conveyed  a 
feeling  to  the  child's  soul  of  respect  for  the  spiritual  life. 
"  Religion  is  something  that  comes  to  you  from  outside  of 
you." 

This  feeling,  however,  was  destined  to  fade;  and  the 
hymn  and  its  tune.  Here  we  suffer  grief  and  pain,  ceased  to 
haunt  his  mind.  He  says  he  grew  "  utterly  regardless  with 
respect  to  religion,"  that  he  "  altogether  settled  down  in  the 
uttermost  indifference,"  that  thoughtlessness  would  be  the 
best  term  to  describe  his  state  at  that  time.  But  he  avers 
that  he  can  remember  "  an  inward  dissatisfaction  with  his 
condition."     "  My  heart."  he  says,  "  was  a  blank." 

He  acknowledges  that  he  was  wilful,  headstrong,  passion- 
ate. He  was  allowed  to  have  his  own  way.  Mischief  he 
underlines  in  the  disjecta  membra  of  his  reminiscences  as 
the  spirit  of  his  boyhood.  He  would  do  anything  for  fun. 
Among  his  playfellows  he  was  a  lord  of  misrule.  Never- 
theless this  devotion  to  mischief  of  every  kind  went  hand 
in  hand  with  a  love  of  reading.  He  was  affected  by  poetry 
—  the  Night  Thoughts  of  Young,  and  the  poems  of  Kirke 
White.  He  also  read  many  novels,  as  we  have  already  said, 
and  he  gives  us  a  hint  that  his  favourite  authors  were 
Walter  Scott  and  Fenimore  Cooper.  He  complains  of  that 
period,  "  There  was  no  one  to  direct  me."  He  considered 
on  reflection  that  he  was  saved  from  ruin  in  boyhood  by  the 


40  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

financial  sorrows  of  his  family.  "  Doubtless  the  trials  of 
my  early  days  caused  by  my  father's  failing  fortunes  had  a 
beneficial  efifect  on  my  character.  I  felt  them  most  keenly ; 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  they  embittered  the  early  years 
of  my  boyish  life."  Always  there  is  the  shadow  of  the 
father  on  his  childhood.  He  might  play  mischievously  in 
the  churchyard,  go  gratefully  to  fish  in  the  Trent,  bury  him- 
self in  poetry  and  novels,  dream  of  greatness  in  manhood  — 
for  he  was  decidedly  ambitious  —  but  always  his  thoughts, 
his  hopes,  his  headstrong  audacity,  and  his  cheerful  games 
were  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  that  silent  and  unlovable 
father  going  steadily  down  to  ruin. 

A  strange  incident  occurred  while  he  was  still  at  school. 
A  lady  and  gentleman  passing  William  Booth  while  he 
played  in  the  streets  would  turn  so  often  to  look  at  him  that 
at  last  he  became  aware  of  their  interest.  He  would  look 
up  at  them  as  they  appeared,  and  watch  them  as  they  passed 
on,  wondering  what  it  was  that  caused  them  to  regard  him 
so  affectionately.  One  day  they  stopped  and  spoke  to  him, 
the  gentleman  asking  how  he  was  getting  on  at  school.  The 
lady  then  made  it  clear  why  they  were  interested  in  him. 
Her  eyes  filled  with  tears,  as  she  told  the  boy  that  he  greatly 
resembled  their  son  whom  they  had  lost  by  death. 

After  this  a  friendship  sprang  up  between  the  old  people 
and  the  boy.  They  asked  him  to  their  house,  treated  him 
with  the  greatest  kindness,  and  would  even  have  adopted 
him.  They  were  Wesleyans,  and,  with  his  parents'  permis- 
sion, occasionally  took  him  to  chapel.  This  was  his  first 
introduction  to  Methodism.  "  My  religious  training,"  he 
says,  "  was  nil " ;  and  he  adds  that  attendance  at  this  chapel 
made  some  slight  impressions  upon  him,  but  nothing  more. 

Then  came  an  event  that  did  away  with  every  thought 
about  religion.  The  calling  in  of  a  mortgage  precipitated 
his  father's  ruin.  The  family  was  plunged  into  poverty. 
"  The  purpose  of  making  me  a  gentleman,"  says  William 
Booth,  "  was  defeated."  He  was  taken  away  from  school 
and  sent  into  business.     He  was  thirteen  years  of  age. 

To  the  end  of  his  days  William  Booth  could  seldom  bring 
himself  to  speak  freely  of  his  first  acquaintance  with  business 
life.     There  is  no  doubt  that  the  memorv  was  a  sad  one. 


iiiJ  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  41 

He  shunned  it.  In  all  his  writings  I  can  find  no  direct 
reference  to  the  nature  of  this  employment.  He  speaks 
always  of  "  a  business,"  or  of  "  a  trade,"  never  once  can 
he  force  himself  to  say  outright  that  the  business  to  which 
his  father  apprenticed  him  was  a  pawnbroker's.  And  yet 
there  cannot  be  any  doubt  at  all  that  it  was  the  associations 
of  this  business  which  had  a  determining  effect  upon  his 
after  life.  He  became  deeply  acquainted  with  the  misery 
of  other  people.  There  had  been  misery  enough  in  his  own 
childhood,  but  it  was  a  form  of  misery  which  isolated  him 
from  the  world.  He  felt  his  position,  and  knew  that  his 
parents  endeavoured  to  hide  their  poverty  from  their  neigh- 
bours, as  though  all  the  neighbours  were  respectable  and 
prosperous,  they  alone  poor  and  struggling.  But  now  he 
learned  that  many  other  people  were  fighting  against  pov- 
erty, and  grew  to  know  that  suffering  and  sorrow,  depriva- 
tion and  shame,  positive  penury  and  positive  want,  drag  their 
net  in  a  wide  sea  of  human  misery. 

Furthermore,  it  is  also  certain  that  the  subsequent  shame 
which  he  felt  for  his  work  deepened  in  his  soul  a  longing 
for  a  life  more  beautiful  and  more  satisfying,  embittering 
his  bitterness  still  further,  agitating  his  unrest  still  more 
violently,  and  driving  him  more  and  more  outwards  from 
himself,  outwards  from  that  centre  of  his  consciousness 
where  all  was  dark,  unhappy,  and  without  peace. 

Why  did  his  father  choose  this  particular  business  ?  "  Be- 
cause," says  William  Booth,  "  he  knew  no  greater  gain  or 
end  than  money." 

The  boy  had  been  trained  to  regard  himself  as  a  gentle- 
man's son.  He  had  been  told  that  his  father  intended  to 
make  a  gentleman  of  him.  He  was  adored  by  his  sisters. 
He  was  the  leader  of  his  playfellows.  He  had  been  sent 
to  a  good  school.  He  was  in  every  way  something  of  a  hero. 
And  now,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  he  was  told  that  he  must 
go  and  work  for  his  living,  and  learned  that  he  was  to 
serve  in  a  small  pawnbroker's  shop  situated  in  the  poorest 
part  of  Nottingham. 

His  father  had  a  talk  with  him.  He  held  forth  to  the 
boy  the  allurements  of  money.  He  told  him  it  was  a  busi- 
ness that  paid  well,  a  business  by  which  fortunes  were  not 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

only  easily  but  quickly  made.  He  counselled  his  son  to 
give  all  his  attention  to  the  work,  and  to  keep  ever  before 
him  the  prospect  of  setting  up  for  himself,  avoiding  part- 
nerships. 

William  Booth  was  only  a  boy.  The  business  promised 
freedom  from  school.  He  liked  the  idea  of  earning  money. 
"  I  went  into  it,"  he  says,  "  with  a  will."  Then  he  adds 
the  characteristic  notes :  "  My  after  hatred  of  the  trade. 
A  proper  estimate  of  the  business.  The  use  and  abuse  of 
it."  He  also  remarks  that  this  work  "  continued  my  asso- 
ciation with  the  poorest  and  lowest." 

He  was  too  honest  a  man  not  to  perceive  that  pawn- 
brokery  has  a  good  side  —  a  side,  indeed,  which  is  of  dis- 
tinct benefit  to  the  poor.  His  full  dislike  of  the  trade  came 
to  him  after  his  actual  experience  of  the  business.  He  him- 
self had  enormously  developed  when  he  perceived  the  dead- 
ening effect  it  is  apt  to  exercise  on  the  highest  sympathies  of 
human  nature.  He  disliked  it,  there  is  no  doubt,  more  in  his 
old  age  than  in  his  youth ;  in  his  youth  it  was  an  interruption 
of  his  spiritual  life,  a  disagreeable,  dislikable  employment, 
but  not  a  thing  of  loathing  or  disgust. 

At  this  time  he  made  companionships  whose  influence, 
he  says,  was  anything  but  beneficial.  "  I  went  downhill 
morally,  and  the  consequences  might  have  been  serious,  if 
not  eternally  disastrous,  but  that  the  hand  of  God  was  on 
me  in  a  very  remarkable  manner."  One  must  bear  in  mind 
that  this  memory  was  written  many  years  afterwards,  and 
one  may  be  forgiven  the  doubt  if  the  boy  of  thirteen  had 
really  gone  very  far  down  the  hill  that  leads  to  moral  dis- 
aster. It  is  more  probable  that  the  phrase  means  careless- 
ness in  ideas,  frivolity  in  conduct,  and  indifference  to 
religion. 

Fie  had  not  been  a  year  in  this  shop  when  he  was 
hurriedly  summoned  from  his  bed  one  night  and  told  to 
come  quickly,  for  his  father  was  dying.  This  was  in 
September,  1842.  Samuel  Booth  had  manifested  spiritual 
concern  in  this  last  illness,  chiefly  through  the  persistent 
appeals  of  "  Cousin  Gregory."  He  was  at  last  willing,  he 
at  last  had  time,  to  attend  to  religion.     "  Very  sincerely," 


in]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  43 

the  son  believed,  "  he  turned  his  heart  away  from  the  world 
that  he  thought  had  used  him  so  badly." 

The  Sacrament  was  administered.  The  group  round  the 
bed  sang  Rock  of  Ages.  Samuel  Booth  committed  his  wife 
and  children  to  the  care  of  God,  and  died  in  peace.  "  So 
ended,"  wrote  his  son,  "his  career  —  devoted  to  money- 
getting."  It  was  a  death-bed  repentance.  "  Though  this 
skin-of-the-teeth  sort  of  business  of  getting  to  heaven  is  to 
be  in  no  ways  recommended,  yet  because  he  impressed  me 
and  all  else  who  knew  him  as  such  a  real  honest-hearted 
man  according  to  his  light,  and  seeing  that  the  transaction 
was  in  keeping  with  his  character,  and  therefore  a  reality, 
it  is  a  ground  of  hope  concerning  my  meeting  him  again 
where  fortunes  made  shall  be  lost  no  more." 

He  says  in  another  place,  as  we  recorded  before,  "  Deeply 
though  I  felt  his  loss,  my  grief  was  all  but  forbidden  by  the 
thought  that  it  was  not  my  mother  who  had  been  taken 
from  me." 

No  doubt  the  death  of  his  father  made  a  deeper  impres- 
sion upon  his  young  mind  than  he  remembered  in  his  old 
age.  One  does  not  think  that  any  child,  but  particularly 
a  child  of  this  temperament,  could  be  called  suddenly  at 
night  to  the  death-bed  of  his  father,  could  witness  and  share 
in  the  spontaneous  service  at  the  bedside,  and  finally  be- 
hold, in  the  wavering  and  ghostly  candle-light,  the  solemn 
almost  terrifying  mystery  of  death,  without  thinking  of  his 
own  soul  and  the  life  beyond  death  as  it  touched  him  in  his 
innermost  thought. 

Certain  it  is  that  with  no  other  change  in  his  circum- 
stances, with  no  help  or  guidance  from  any  other  creature, 
William  Booth  began  from  this  time  to  be  more  interested 
in  religion.  He  had  almost  parted  company  with  the  Church 
of  England,  and  was  now  a  frequent  attendant  at  Wesley 
Chapel.  He  formed  more  reasonable  friendships.  His  life 
began  to  be  coloured  by  the  religion  of  other  people. 
Among  these  friends  was  one  who  outlived  him,  a  Mr.  New- 
bold,  who  remembers  William  Booth,  and  recalls  how  he 
met  him  one  day,  "  near  to  Broad  Street,"  and  asked  him 
to  become  a  member  of  "  Brother  Carey's  Class."     William 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Booth  consented,  and  joined  this  class  in  the  Chapel,  which 
was  "  led,"  as  the  Wesleyans  say,  by  a  Mr.  Henry  Carey  — 
a  very  good  and  upright  man  of  considerable  position,  whose 
wife  took  some  share  in  his  ministrations. 

In  the  notes  which  he  left  behind  him  of  this  period,  after 
remarking  that  he  got  nothing  but  impressions  from  the 
services  in  Wesley  Chapel,  and  making  two  strokes  after  the 
full  stop  as  if  to  indicate  an  emphatic  termination  to  this 
part  of  the  story,  he  sets  down  the  name,  Isaac  Marsden. 
But  nowhere  else  in  these  ricordi  does  he  again  mention  the 
name,  and  one  would  be  left  to  conjecture  whether  Isaac 
Marsden  definitely  began  the  new  chapter  in  his  life,  or  was 
only  a  ghost  haunting  the  dim  horizon  of  his  oblivious  past, 
but  for  a  reference  to  the  matter  in  a  book  called  Isaac 
Marsden  of  Doncaster,  where  the  author  quotes  William 
Booth  as  saying: 

I  shall  never  forget  the  words  I  first  heard  from  Mr.  Isaac 
Marsden.  I  was  walking  out  one  evening  with  two  friends  at 
Nottingham,  when  I  was  fourteen  years  of  age.  Mr.  Marsden 
was  conducting  special  services  at  a  Wesleyan  Chapel,  and  at 
that  time  no  one  could  hear  him  who  had  any  belief  in  the  great 
truths  of  the  Bible  without  being  deeply  impressed  and  stimu- 
lated. 

We  entered  the  Chapel  late  —  in  the  dusk.  I  could  hardly 
see  the  speaker;  but  just  at  that  moment  he  was  saying,  "A 
soul  dies  every  minute."  ...  I  have  little  doubt  that,  but  for 
my  two  friends,  I  should  have  stayed  that  very  night  and  given 
my  heart  to  God. 

Inquiry  leads  one  to  surmise  that  Isaac  Marsden  gave  to 
William  Booth  his  great  intelligent  notion  of  a  vital  religion. 
It  is  credible  that  Isaac  Marsden's  influence  not  only  led  to 
the  conversion  of  William  Booth,  but  sowed  in  the  boy's 
mind  the  seed  which  was  destined  to  grow  into  a  great  tree 
overspreading  the  whole  world.  For  Isaac  Marsden  was 
half  a  John  Wesley  and  half  a  General  Booth. 

He  is  described  to  me  by  one  who  remembers  him  as  a 
somewhat  eccentric  lay  preacher  whose  head  and  mouth  gave 
him  a  noticeable  likeness  to  John  Bright.  He  was  "  very 
strong  mentally,  a  great  saver  of  souls.  A  man  of  original- 
ity and  power  from  the  first;  rough  and  wild  before  his  con- 


in]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  45 

version,  a  very  Hon  in  courageous  faith  ever  after."     Mr. 
Isaac  Page  has  written  an  account  of  Marsden : 

He  preached  on  Sunday  when  I  heard  him,  and  followed  up 
the  work  during  the  week.  Each  night  an  old-fashioned  revival 
service  was  held  —  a  fervid  sermon,  strong  appeals,  a  rousing 
j)rayer-meeting,  many  penitents,  and  shouts  of  praise  to  God. 
In  those  days  nothing  was  said  about  closing  the  meetings  at 
nine  o'clock.  They  continued  as  long  as  there  were  souls  seek- 
ing salvation,  sometimes  till  a  very  late  hour.  Not  infre- 
(luently  groups  of  happy  people  proceeded  homewards  at  mid- 
night, making  the  stillness  lively  with  their  songs  of  praise. 

He  used  to  hold  an  early  Sunday  morning  prayer-meet- 
ing, says  Mr.  Page,  "  and  if,  as  he  returned,  he  saw  a  servant 
girl  washing  the  door-steps,  he  would  speak  a  word  or  two, 
and  then  down  on  his  knees  in  the  street  to  pray  for  her 
salvation." 

He  would  speak  to  men  in  his  walks,  or  in  houses  or  shops 
where  he  called,  in  such  fashion  that  they  were  fain  to  go  and 
hear  him  preach.  One  day,  as  he  went  along  the  street,  he  saw 
a  woman  hanging  out  clothes.  His  eyes  glanced  along  the  line 
of  garments,  and  he  said,  "  I  say,  missus,  if  your  heart  is  not 
washed  cleaner  than  those  clothes,  you'll  never  get  to  heaven." 

He  was  devoted  to  children,  and  carried  sweets  in  his 
pockets  when  he  went  to  give  a  Sunday  school  address.  He 
would  teach  them  a  little  prayer  to  say  daily :  "  Lord,  make 
me  good,  and  keep  me  good :  and  bless  Isaac  Marsden." 

Such  a  man  must  have  had  some  fascination  for  William 
Booth.  Nevertheless,  when  he  came  to  look  back  on  those 
far-off  days,  William  Booth  could  recall  no  penetrating  word 
addressed  to  his  soul,  no  arresting  hand  laid  upon  his  throb- 
bing pulses.  He  could  see  nothing  of  human  agency  in  the 
new  birth  which  was  then  shaping  in  his  soul.  One  thinks, 
however,  that  a  more  rigorous  examination  of  his  memory, 
with  the  name  of  Isaac  Marsden  as  a  clue,  might  have  led  at 
least  to  some  modification  of  this  opinion. 

"  Although  the  change  that  came  over  me  was  sudden," 
he  says,  "  it  was  nevertheless  reached  by  stages.  There  was 
the  realized  superiority  of  the  religious  life  over  the  purely 
worldly  form  of  existence  which  I  had  lived  so  long."     (The 


46  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

reader  will  remember  with  a  kindly  smile  that  the  worldly 
form  of  existence  had  extended  to  fourteen  completed  years 
of  troubled  childhood.)  "Although  my  heart  was  very 
largely  unaffected  by  the  form  of  service  in  which  I  joined, 
my  mind  was  nevertheless  convinced  of  the  rightness,  and 
dignity,  and  profitableness  of  the  service  of  God  that  was  set 
before  my  eyes.  I  realized  its  satisfying  nature,  and,  conse- 
quently, I  gradually  became  convinced  of  its  superiority,  and, 
more  than  this,  a  hunger  sprang  up  for  its  realisation. 
Whatever  the  circumstances  that  may  have  led  to  my  con- 
version, that  conversion  was  a  definite  and  decisive  event  in 
my  history.  I  was  utterly  without  any  experience  of 
religion;  in  fact,  wholly  given  up  to  a  life  of  self-indul- 
gence." 

The  reader  will  remember  the  caution  I  ventured  to  ex- 
press in  the  last  chapter  concerning  William  Booth's  mem- 
ories of  the  past  and  also  concerning  his  phraseology.  It  is 
surely  misuse  of  language  to  speak  of  his  boyhood  as  "  a  life 
of  self-indulgence,"  and  to  say  that  he  was  living  a  "  purely 
worldly  form  of  existence."  This  is  self-evident.  And  it 
is  also  very  probable  that  his  other  recollections  of  this  im- 
portant period  of  his  life  are  saturated  with  the  Ahcrglaiihe 
of  later  years.  One  cannot  think  that  a  boy  between  thir- 
teen and  fourteen  years  of  age  was  "  convinced  of  the  right- 
ness, and  dignity,  and  profitableness  of  the  service  of  God," 
or  that  he  "  realised  its  satisfying  nature,  and  consequently 
.  .  .  became  convinced  of  its  superiority."  Boys  do  not 
argue.  This  is  the  language  of  the  old  man,  the  old  man 
so  used  to  that  language  of  his  maturity  that  he  cannot  quite 
think  himself  back  into  the  moods  of  his  childhood,  moods 
destitute  of  a  vocabulary. 

It  is  plain  that  nothing  more  took  place  at  this  time  in 
the  boy's  mind  than  a  gradual  pressure  of  its  former  un- 
happiness.  He  was  unhappy,  and  he  knew  that  he  was 
unhappy.  In  chapel  and  in  class  he  heard  about  the  religious 
life  which  is  said  to  take  away  unhappiness.  He  desired 
that  life,  because  he  was  unhappy.  He  says,  and  there  is 
no  doubt  a  profound  truth  in  the  remembrance,  "  I  wanted 
to  be  right  with  God.     I  wanted  to  be  right  in  myself.     I 


in]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  47 

wanted  a  life  spent  in  putting  other  people  right."  Yes; 
but  all  this  was  cloudlike,  inexpressible,  and  vague  in  the 
boy's  soul. 

Almost  immediately  he  adds :  "  How  I  came  to  this 
notion  of  religion,  when  I  saw  so  little  of  its  character  mani- 
fested around  me,  sometimes  puzzles  me."  It  was  of  course 
—  save  only  the  humanitarian  impulse  which  probably  came 
later  —  a  not  uncommon  experience  of  childhood.  Chil- 
dren, as  well  as  adults,  are  "  tortured  by  divine  things." 
They  have  a  consciousness  of  unrest,  a  longing  for  satis- 
faction, a  feeling  towards  and  a  longing  after  some  myste- 
rious beautiful  and  rapturous  embrace  which  they  feel  is 
coming  towards  them  from  the  invisible  kingdom  of  dreams. 
They  are  inarticulate,  they  cannot  express  what  they  feel, 
and  their  longing  is  confused  by  a  thousand  influences  from 
fairy-tale,  legend,  and  belief  in  magic  and  witchcraft ;  but 
it  is  there,  torturing  their  souls,  a  disbelief  in  the  material 
world,  a  hatred  of  all  dulness  and  mechanical  exercise,  a 
longing  for  romance,  a  repetition  of  the  miracle. 

One  thing  is  certain.  Throughout  his  childhood  William 
Booth  was  overshadowed  by  a  feeling  of  the  nearness  of 
God.  He  never  knew  the  isolation  of  even  a  transitory 
atheism.  Whether  he  was  mischievous  or  good,  whether 
he  was  "  worldly  "  or  unselfish,  he  believed  in  God.  He 
was  by  no  means  in  love  with  this  faith,  the  sense  of  God 
by  no  means  contributed  to  his  happiness.  But  he  was 
perfectly  certain  of  God's  existence.  He  speaks  of  "  that 
instinctive  belief  in  God  which,  in  common  with  my  fellow- 
creatures,  I  had  brought  into  the  world  with  me."  Op- 
pressed by  this  faith,  and  with  no  guidance  from  any  one, 
the  boy  whose  whole  childhood  had  been  darkened  and  em- 
bittered, the  boy  whose  nature  was  passionate,  headstrong, 
impulsive,  and  charged  with  the  spirit  of  leadership,  came 
at  last  to  long  for  escape  from  himself,  determined  to  make 
a  fight  for  his  own  peace  of  mind. 

While  this  pressure  of  unhappiness  and  this  sense  of 
God's  reality  were  deepening  in  his  soul,  he  was  devoting 
himself  with  natural  zeal  to  the  interests  of  his  employer. 
He  was  quick,  he  was  thorough,  he  was  energetic,  he  was 


48  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

orderly  and  trustworthy.  There  was  no  thought  in  his 
mind  of  forsaking  this  business.  He  was  ambitious,  and 
he  meant  to  get  on  in  the  world.  Side  by  side  in  his 
soul  were  these  two  equal  forces  —  one  driving  him  to 
religious  safety,  the  other  urging  him  to  material  prosperity. 
Nothing  of  the  mystic  showed  in  his  nature.  No  violent 
change  in  personality  was  manifest  in  these  early  stirrings 
of  his  spirit. 

Soon  after  the  father's  death  Mary  Booth  was  obliged 
to  leave  the  humble  house  in  Sneinton  Road.  She  was 
robbed  right  and  left,  says  her  son,  by  those  who  had  the 
handling  of  her  husband's  ruined  estate.  It  became  neces- 
sary not  only  for  her  to  leave  the  house  in  Sneinton  Road, 
but  to  earn  money  for  her  children.  She  took  a  very  small 
shop  in  one  of  the  poor  quarters  of  Nottingham. 

A  strange  incident,  of  which  William  Booth  never  heard, 
occurred  at  this  time.  Opposite  to  the  house  in  Sneinton 
Road,  as  we  have  said,  was  the  smallware  shop  of  Grand- 
father Page,  and  one  of  his  sons,  Isaac,  now  a  retired  Wes- 
leyan  minister,  was  a  little  boy  when  Mrs.  Booth  and  her 
children  moved  from  the  neighbourhood.  He  said  to  me, 
"  The  first  knowledge  I  had  of  the  Booths'  removal  came  iv 
an  odd  way.  I  woke  up  one  morning,  went  to  the  windov^ 
of  my  bedroom,  and  looked  out.  I  noticed  something  mov- 
ing against  the  upper  window  of  the  house  opposite,  and 
calling  my  brother  we  both  saw  quite  distinctly  that  a  big 
white  bird,  like  a  swan  or  a  stork,  was  beating  its  wings 
against  the  glass,  jumping  up  and  down  as  though  strug- 
gling to  get  out.  Then  we  observed  that  the  curtains  of 
all  the  other  windows  had  gone,  and  knew  that  the  house 
was  empty.  This  was  our  first  knowledge  that  the  Booths 
had  gone.  And  we  never  solved  the  mystery  of  the  white 
bird  at  the  window."  This  is  one  of  those  weird  and  grate- 
fully mysterious  stories  of  which  no  wise  man  will  ask  an 
explanation.  But  Mr.  Page  refuses  to  see  in  it  a  super- 
natural significance.  "  I  have  no  doubt,"  he  says,  "  that 
some  travelling  showman  had  taken  advantage  of  the  empty 
house  to  place  the  creature  there  for  the  night."  Fortu- 
nately, no  child  will  be  satisfied  by  this  interpretation  of  a 
mystery. 


nil  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  49 

William  Booth's  wages  as  an  apprentice  were  so  meagre 
that  he  could  do  little  to  help  his  mother.  Her  establish- 
ment was  a  smalhvare  shop,  where  she  sold  toys,  needles, 
tape,  cotton,  and  similar  necessities  of  a  good  housewife  — 
a  very  humble  business  with  few  customers  and  small  profits. 
It  is  significant  that  even  in  these  altered  circumstances  Ann 
Booth's  friend,  Sarah  Butler,  a  young  lady  of  some  social 
distinction,  still  remained  a  visitor  to  the  family,  and  that 
the  first  friends  of  Wilham  Booth  were  young  men  of  posi- 
tion who  had  known  him  in  the  days  of  Nottintone  Place. 
The  family  still  remained  "  proud  and  austere,"  as  Sarah 
Butler  says ;  but  there  was  evidently  a  deeper  warmth  and 
an  entirely  new  feeling  of  freedom  in  the  spirit  of  the  house- 
hold. Ruin  had  come;  a  definite  poverty  had  fallen;  but 
the  shadow  of  the  embittered  man  had  lifted  and  the  family 
drew  closer  together. 

In  this  same  year,  1842,  there  was  great  excitement 
in  Nottingham  over  a  Parliamentary  election.  Mr.  John 
Walter,  of  The  Times,  was  opposed  by  a  Radical  reformer 
from  Birmingham,  Mr.  Sturge.  Feargus  O'Connor  de- 
scended upon  the  town,  and  the  scenes  in  the  street,  the  ora- 
tory of  the  hustings,  the  procession  of  rival  clubs,  and  the 
language  of  the  newspapers  were  as  picturesque,  violent, 
and  grotesque  as  the  more  famous  election  in  Eatanswill. 
In  this  case  there  was  a  very  serious  collision  between  the 
Chartists  and  the  soldiers  in  the  town;  hundreds  of  men 
were  arrested,  and  in  several  instances  offenders  were 
sentenced  to  six  months,  four  months,  and  two  months, 
with  hard  labour.  In  the  same  year  Cobden  and  Bright 
came  to  Nottingham,  and  took  part  in  a  great  Free  Trade 
demonstration  which  further  quickened  the  political  feeling 
in  the  town. 

William  Booth  was  afifected  by  this  storm.  He  sym- 
pathized with  the  Chartists  and  attended  their  meetings. 
Mr.  W.  T.  Stead  says  that  he  "  grew  up  in  an  atmosphere 
of  unrest,  in  a  hot-bed  of  quasi-revolutionary  discontent." 
It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  however,  that  almost  every- 
thing demanded  by  the  Chartists  is  now  a  commonplace  of 
our  constitution.  William  Booth  was  never  a  revolution- 
ary,   and    became    more    conservative    as    he    grew    older. 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

"  My  father,"  says  Bramwell  Booth,  "  did  not  believe  that 
you  could  make  a  man  clean  by  washing  his  shirt."  In  his 
fourteenth  year,  however,  he  was  a  hot  reformer.  "  The 
poverty,"  says  Mr.  Stead,  "  that  he  saw  on  every  side  filled 
him  with  a  spirit  of  passionate  revolt  against  constituted 
authority.  He  was  but  a  boy  of  thirteen  when  Feargus 
O'Connor  first  visited  Nottingham,  but  in  all  the  thousands 
the  great  Chartist  orator  had  no  more  enthusiastic  disciple 
than  William  Booth.  He  w^as  a  Chartist  —  a  physical  force 
Chartist  of  course,  being  a  boy,  and  therefore  uncompro- 
mising. He  went  to  their  meetings,  he  cheered  their 
speeches,  he  subscribed  to  the  Charter,  and,  if  need  had 
arisen,  he  would  have  been  disappointed  if  he  could  not 
have  shouldered  a  pike  or  fired  a  musket.  .  .  .  '  The 
Chartists  were  for  the  poor,'  so  the  boy  reasoned,  *  therefore 
I  am  for  the  Chartists.'  " 

There  was  now  a  threefold  pressure  on  the  boy's  mind. 
He  desired  to  succeed  in  business  and  make  money  for 
his  mother  and  sisters;  he  was  enthusiastic  for  political 
reform  —  and  somewhat  ambitious  to  play  the  orator ;  he 
was  vaguely  but  hauntingly  anxious  to  arrive  at  some  re- 
ligious understanding  with  his  own  soul.  In  his  home 
he  was  distressingly  aware  of  poverty;  in  the  streets  and 
in  his  shop  he  saw  little  else  but  poverty ;  and  in  his  spirit 
he  was  conscious  of  another  and  more  insistent  poverty. 

One  can  picture  the  boy  leaving  his  mother's  little  shop 
early  in  the  morning,  probably  rather  hungry,  and  posting 
at  a  great  pace  to  the  pawnbroker's  shop.  He  was  tall 
beyond  his  years,  exceedingly  pale,  with  hair  as  black  as  a 
raven,  and  dark  luminous  eyes  that  flashed  at  the  least  prov- 
ocation; a  thin,  pinched,  pallid  boy,  who  walked  quickly 
with  a  raking  stride,  stooping  at  the  shoulders,  the  arms 
swinging  with  energy.  He  would  be  one  of  the  multitude 
hasting  to  work,  pushing  his  way  through  a  multitude  un- 
willingly out  of  work,  the  noise  of  the  frame-knitting  ma- 
chines in  his  ears,  the  sight  of  hungry  children  before  his 
eyes.  And  one  can  see  him  walking  back  through  the  dark 
streets  at  eight  o'clock  at  night,  fagged,  hungry,  and  tor- 
tured by  his  thoughts,  but  eager  for  something  to  happen, 


m]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  51 

willing  to  take  part  in  any  vigorous  action,  never  listless  or 
inert. 

So  passed  two  years  of  his  "  blighted  childhood."  Occa- 
sionally he  stole  away  from  this  wretchedness  and  forgot  the 
pain  of  the  world  in  his  favourite  sport  of  fishing  in  the 
Trent.  Occasionally  he  was  happy  in  the  flowering  fields, 
which  he  loved  with  a  real  and  poetic  fervour.  Occasionally 
he  thre^  himself  into  some  merry  adventure  with  the  new 
companions  of  his  employment.  But  the  three  steady 
things  in  his  mind  were :  first,  the  determination  to  get  on 
in  the  world :  second,  the  ambition  to  work  for  political 
change;  and,  third,  a  longing  to  right  himself  with  God. 

In  the  year  1844,  with  no  outside  human  influence  of 
any  kind  upon  his  soul,  this  headstrong  and  impulsive  boy 
determined  to  make  that  total  and  mysterious  surrender 
of  personality  which  is  a  condition  precedent  to  what  we 
call  conversion.  He  was  unhappy,  and  he  desired  to  escape 
from  unhappiness.  Without  language  to  describe  his  feel- 
ings, without  the  faculty  to  analy/^e  his  sentiments,  he  came 
to  the  decision  that  he  would  change  the  whole  character 
of  his  life  and  divert  the  energy  of  his  soul  into  a  new 
channel. 

"  I  felt,"  he  says,  "  that  I  wanted,  in  place  of  the  life  of 
self-indulgence  to  which  I  was  yielding  myself,  a  happy, 
conscious  sense  that  I  was  pleasing  God,  living  right,  and 
spending  all  my  powers  to  get  others  into  such  a  life." 

In  these  words  William  Booth  justifies  the  definition  of 
William  James  that  "  to  be  converted,  to  be  regenerated, 
to  receive  grace,  to  experience  religion,  to  gain  assurance, 
are  so  many  phrases  which  denote  the  process,  gradual  or 
sudden,  by  which  a  self  hitherto  divided,  and  consciously 
wrong,  inferior,  and  unhappy,  becomes  unified  and  con- 
sciously right,  superior,  and  happy,  in  consequence  of  its 
firmer  hold  upon  religious  realities." 

From  the  beginning  of  his  life  to  the  end,  in  spite  of 
much  language  which  might  seem  to  exhibit  religion  only 
as  an  escape  from  punishment,  only  as  an  escape  from  wrath, 
only  as  an  escape  from  eternal  damnation,  the  heart  and 
soul  of  William  Booth's  religion  was  happiness  —  an  uprush 


52  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  feeling  from  obstruction  towards  the  central  pivotal  sense 
of  unity  with  God,  a  triumphant  and  penetrating  blessing, 
a  victorious  and  suffusing  solution  of  all  sorrow,  trouble, 
difficulty,  and  spiritual  confusion. 

He  desired  in  his  distracted  boyhood  "  a  happy  conscious 
sense  "  that  he  w^as  pleasing  God. 

"  I  saw,"  he  avers,  "  that  all  this  ought  to  be,  and  I 
decided  that  it  should  be.  It  is  wonderful  that  I  should 
have  reached  this  decision  in  view  of  all  the  influences  then 
around  me."  His  employer,  a  Unitarian,  "  never  uttered 
a  word  to  indicate  that  he  believed  in  anything  he  could 
not  see,  and  many  of  my  companions  were  worldly  and 
sensual,  some  of  them  even  vicious." 

He  speaks  of  his  instinctive  belief  in  God,  and  goes  on 
to  say,  "  I  had  no  disposition  to  deny  my  instincts,  which 
told  me  that  if  there  was  a  God  His  laws  ought  to  have  my 
obedience  and  His  interests  my  service." 

Then  follows  a  characteristic  sentence :  "  I  felt  that  it 
was  better  to  live  right  than  to  live  wrong ;  and  as  to  caring 
for  the  interests  of  others  instead  of  my  own,  the  condition 
of  the  suffering  people  around  me,  people  with  whom  I  had 
been  so  long  familiar,  and  whose  agony  seemed  to  reach  its 
climax  about  this  time,  undoubtedly  affected  me  very 
deeply." 

It  may  puzzle  some  people  to  believe  that  a  boy  of 
fifteen  was  powerfully  moved  by  the  humanitarian  spirit; 
and  no  doubt  William  Booth  saw  in  the  darkness  of  those 
early  days,  when  he  came  to  look  back  upon  them,  some- 
thing of  the  reflected  light  of  the  great  master-passion  which 
transfigured  his  after  existence.  Indeed,  this  history  will 
clearly  show  that  he  grew  into  humanitarianism,  and  that 
this  humanitarianism  was  the  developed  fruit  of  his  re- 
ligion. Nevertheless,  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  germ  of 
humanitarianism  was  present  in  his  soul  from  a  very  early 
age,  and  there  is  definite  proof  that  he  was  conscious  of  it 
at  the  time  of  his  conversion. 

In  all  his  papers  dealing  with  this  period  of  his  life  —  and 
he  made  more  than  one  attempt  at  autobiography  —  there  is 
reference  to  the  spectacle,  in  1844,  o^  children  crying  for 
bread  in  the  streets  of  Nottingham.     This  is  perhaps  the 


ni]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  53 

most  definite  of  all  his  youthful  memories,  transcending,  of 
a  certainty,  any  influence  made  upon  his  mind  by  the 
oratory  of  Feargus  O'Connor.  He  could  remember  not  a 
word  of  the  fiery  speeches  he  had  cheered  till  he  was  hoarse; 
he  could  remember  not  a  sermon  he  had  listened  to  in  chapel, 
not  an  address,  not  '*  an  experience  "  he  had  heard  in  class; 
but  the  visual  memory  of  ragged  children  weeping  bitterly 
for  food  in  the  streets  of  the  town  was  a  picture  printed  on 
his  soul  with  a  sharpness  that  could  not  be  blurred.  This 
he  remembered;  and  it  will  be  seen  that  after  his  conver- 
sion he  did  at  least  one  little  act  of  humanitarian  charity 
typical  of  the  work  which  has  ever  since  characterized  and 
honoured  the  Salvation  Army. 

He  had  now  reached  that  point  when  the  soul  determines 
to  act  with  decision.  He  came  nearer  to  the  great  step  at 
the  services  in  which  he  took  part,  at  the  occasional  Class 
Meetings,  where  he  answered  the  questions  of  his  Leader 
concerning  the  state  of  his  soul ;  but  he  could  not  bring 
himself  to  the  actual  deed  of  a  public  surrender.  Some- 
thing held  him  back.  It  was  the  memory  of  a  sin.  "  The 
inward  Light  revealed  to  me,"  he  says,  "  that  I  must  not 
only  renounce  everything  I  knew  to  be  sinful,  but  make 
restitution,  so  far  as  I  had  the  ability,  for  any  wrong  I  had 
done  to  others  before  I  could  find  peace  with  God."  The 
boy  was  now  tormented  by  a  guilty  conscience.  He  carried 
about  with  him  not  only  a  guilty  conscience,  but  a  visible 
and  tangible  possession  which  upbraided  him  with  the  wrath 
of  God.  It  was  a  silver  pencil-case.  And  this  silver  pencil- 
case,  going  to  and  from  his  work,  and  all  the  time  he  was 
at  his  work,  burned  like  fire  against  his  flesh.  Suddenly, 
though  the  approach  had  been  gradual  and,  in  a  sense, 
dilatory,  the  struggle  ceased.  The  moment  came  one  night, 
at  eleven  o'clock,  in  the  streets  of  Nottingham. 

"  It  w^as  in  the  open  street,"  he  says,  "  that  this  great 
change  passed  over  me,  and  if  I  could  only  have  possessed 
the  flagstone  on  which  I  stood  at  that  happy  moment,  the 
sight  of  it  occasionally  might  have  been  as  useful  to  me  as 
the  stones  carried  up  long  ago  from  the  bed  of  the  Jordan 
were  to  the  Israelites  who  had  passed  over  them  dry-shod." 

He  tells  us  what  had  hitherto  held  him  back :     "  The 


54  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

entrance  to  the  Heavenly  Kingdom  was  closed  against  me 
by  an  evil  act  of  the  past  which  required  restitution.  In  a 
boyish  trading  affair  I  had  managed  to  make  a  profit  out  of 
my  companions,  whilst  giving  them  to  suppose  that  what  I 
did  was  all  in  the  way  of  a  generous  fellowship.  As  a  testi- 
monial of  their  gratitude  they  had  given  me  a  silver  pencil- 
case.  Merely  to  return  their  gift  would  have  been  com- 
paratively easy,  but  to  confess  the  deception  I  had  practised 
upon  them  was  a  humiliation  to  which  for  some  days  I 
could  not  bring  myself. 

"  I  remember,  as  if  it  were  but  yesterday,"  he  goes  on, 
"  the  spot  in  the  corner  of  the  room  under  the  chapel,  the 
hour,  the  resolution  to  end  the  matter,  the  rising  up  and 
rushing  forth,  the  finding  of  the  young  fellow  I  had  chiefly 
wronged,  the  acknowledgment  of  my  sin,  the  return  of  the 
pencil-case  —  the  instant  rolling  away  from  my  heart  of  the 
guilty  burden,  the  peace  that  came  in  its  place,  and  the  going 
forth  to  serve  my  God  and  my  generation  from  that  hour." 

He  was  happy,  but  happy  in  a  frame  of  mind  which  may 
be  described  as  one  of  dead  earnestness.  He  is  careful  to 
say  that  he  had  no  experience  at  this  time  of  emotional 
religion.  He  looks  back  and  envies  those  who  have  had 
that  experience  from  the  first.  But  he  was  happy.  "  I 
felt  .  .  .  that  I  could  willingly  and  joyfully  travel  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth  for  Jesus  Christ,  and  suffer  anything 
imaginable  to  help  the  souls  of  other  men." 

There  was  something  thorough  in  the  effect  of  this  con- 
version, and  he  was  troubled  by  no  disenchantment  of  reac- 
tion. "  One  reason,"  he  says,  "  for  the  victory  I  daily 
gained  from  the  moment  of  my  conversion  was,  no  doubt,  my 
complete  and  immediate  separation  from  the  godless  world. 
I  turned  my  back  on  it.  I  gave  it  up,  having  made  up  my 
mind  beforehand  that  if  I  did  go  in  for  God  I  would  do  so 
with  all  my  might." 

But  one  must  be  careful  of  this  language. 

There  was  scarcely  a  "  complete  and  immediate  separa- 
tion from  the  godless  world."  He  remained  in  his  employ- 
ment for  some  years,  and  was  a  very  clever  and  industrious 
assistant  to  his  Unitarian  employer,  as  we  shall  see  in  the 
next  chapter.     He  was  still  obliged  to  rub  shoulders  with 


m]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  55 

his  former  companions  of  this  shop,  some  of  whom  were 
"  worldly  and  sensual,  some  of  them  even  vicious."  What 
he  means  is  this,  though  the  language  is  the  language  of  a 
far  later  period,  that,  living  in  the  same  surroundings  as 
before,  and  pursuing  the  same  commercial  goal  as  before, 
he  now  separated  himself  from  the  more  questionable  of  his 
former  companionships,  abandoned  all  selfish  amusement 
in  his  leisure  moments,  and  was  conscious  in  his  soul  of  a 
solemn  dedication  of  himself  to  high  and  lofty  purposes. 
"  Rather  than  yearning  for  the  world's  pleasures,"  he  says, 
"  books,  games,  or  recreations,  I  found  my  new  nature  lead- 
ing me  to  come  away  from  it  all.  It  had  lost  all  charm  for 
me.  What  were  all  the  novels,  even  those  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott  or  Fenimore  Cooper,  compared  with  the  story  of  my 
Saviour?  What  were  the  choicest  orators  compared  with 
Paul?  What  was  the  hope  of  money-earning,  even  with  all 
my  desire  to  help  my  poor  mother  and  sisters,  in  comparison 
with  the  impei"ishable  wealth  of  ingathered  souls?  I  soon 
began  to  despise  everything  the  world  had  to  offer  me." 

The  language  is  not  extravagant  in  the  light  of  after 
events,  but  it  is  pro1)ably  exaggerated  as  a  contemporary 
expression  of  those  first  early  movements  of  the  boy's  soul. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  he  relinquished  the  reading  of  novels  ; 
no  doubt  that  he  abandoned  many  of  his  former  friendships; 
no  doubt  that  he  ceased  to  envy  the  oratory  of  Feargus 
O'Connor;  and  no  doubt  that  he  ceased  to  feel  pleasure  in 
the  diversions  of  his  former  life.  But  one  must  be  careful 
to  remember  that  he  still  continued  to  be  the  cleverest  and 
most  dependable  of  his  employer's  staff,  and  gave  no  public 
signs  of  desiring  a  life  with  greater  religious  opportunities. 
The  phrase,  "  I  soon  began  to  despise  everything  the  world 
had  to  offer  me,"  is  somewhat  too  exuberant  for  this  phase 
of  his  experience. 

But  the  great  step  was  taken.  Nothing  is  more  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  than  the  simple,  downright,  blunt,  almost 
horrisonant  statement  in  which  he  declares  that  he  had  made 
up  his  mind,  "  if  I  did  go  in  for  God,"  to  do  so  with  all  his 
might.  To  William  Booth  at  that  time,  and  to  William 
Booth  at  the  last  stage  of  his  long  journey,  the  choice  lay 
for   all    mankind    between    God    and    Devil.     He    believed 


56  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

emphatically  in  both.  He  could  see  no  escape  from  belief 
in  both.  And  he  knew  already,  had  known  it  throughout 
his  "  blighted  childhood,"  that  men  definitely  or  indefin- 
itely, consciously  or  unconsciously,  by  all  their  thoughts 
and  by  all  their  actions,  with  consequences  visible  here,  and 
direr  consequences  unimaginable  hereafter,  serve  the  One  or 
the  other.  To  "  go  in  for  God,"  however  the  phrase  may 
strike  upon  the  ear,  meant  with  him  a  rational  decision  for 
the  Best,  a  whole-hearted  loyalty  to  the  Highest,  and  a  life 
of  logical  self-sacrifice  devoted  to  Righteousness.  He  had 
inherited  from  his  father  a  commercial  mind ;  the  imagina- 
tion of  his  mother's  ancestry  gave  warmth  and  fervour  to 
his  disposition ;  the  hard,  vigorous,  uncompromising  spirit 
of  the  north  inspired  his  soul.  Such  a  youth  could  speak 
about  going  in  for  God  without  offence,  and  in  speaking 
about  it  he  would  mean  it  with  an  iron  logic  and  a  fixed 
determination.  His  instincts  told  him  "  that  if  there  were 
a  God  His  laws  ought  to  have  my  obedience  "  ;  and  "  one 
feeling  specially  forced  itself  upon  me,  and  I  can  recollect 
it  as  distinctly  as  though  it  had  transpired  only  yesterday, 
and  that  was  the  sense  of  the  folly  of  spending  my  life  in 
doing  things  for  which  I  knew  I  must  either  repent  or  be 
punished  in  the  days  to  come." 

There  was  something  of  a  bargain  in  his  decision.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  logic  was  at  work  in  his  soul. 
But  chiefly  he  came  to  religion  as  an  escape  from  the  un- 
happiness,  the  unrest,  and  the  dissatisfaction  of  his  troubled 
heart;  came  to  it,  too,  almost  unhelped,  unencouraged,  and 
unbe  friended.  The  child  who  had  grown  up  with  the  idea 
that  he  was  "  to  be  made  a  gentleman  " ;  who  had  seen  the 
shadow  of  poverty  deepening  every  day  upon  the  shabbying 
walls  of  his  unhappy  home;  who  had  been  left  to  form  his 
own  friendships  and  find  his  own  amusements  in  the  playing- 
fields  of  a  manufacturing  town;  who  had  been  thrust  into  a 
very  exacting  and  dispiriting  employment  at  the  age  of  thir- 
teen; who  had  seen  his  father  die,  and  helped  his  mother 
while  he  was  yet  a  boy  to  move  into  a  humble  shop  and 
begin  life  over  again ;  who  had  witnessed  the  utmost  miseries 
and  depressions  of  a  commercial  reaction  which  spread  ruin 
on  every  side;  who  had  listened  with  enthusiasm  to  the 


"I]  A  YOUTHFUL  CONVERSION  57 

oratory  of  so-called  revolutionary  politicians  —  this  boy 
came  of  his  own  choice,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  to  the 
religion  which  makes  a  supreme  demand  and  confers  an 
exclusive  benefit.  He  came  to  it  for  release.  He  came  to 
it,  one  may  say,  selfishly.  And  it  is  certain  that  he  realized 
neither  the  demand  it  was  to  make  of  him,  nor  dreamed  of 
the  triumph  to  which  it  was  destined  to  carry  hjm. 

In  the  year  1844  William  Booth  was  a  very  youthful 
shop-assistant  who  had  decided  to  live  a  religious  life,  and 
who  was  working  exceedingly  hard  to  improve  his  material 
prospects.  Happiness  had  come  to  him,  and  he  had  escaped 
from  the  wretchedness  of  unrest  by  confessing  to  a  sin  that 
haunted  his  conscience,  and  by  deciding  to  live  henceforth 
in  the  knowledge  and  service  of  God. 

No  conversion  could  be  simpler,  less  dramatic,  and  more 
natural;  few  in  the  long  history  of  Christianity  have 
brought  a  richer  harvest  to  the  whole  world. 


^  r'  7-4 


o    /-      '^•'^ 


CHAPTER  IV 

BEGINNINGS    OF    THE    NEW    LIFE    AND    THE    FIRST    SERMON 
EVER  PREACHED  BY  WILLIAM  BOOTH 

1845 

"  Directly  after  I  was  converted  I  had  a  bad  attack  of 
fever.     I  was  brought  down  to  the  edge  of  the  River." 

This  emphatic  statement,  occurring  abruptly  in  the 
disjecta  membra  of  autobiography,  might  lead  the  reader 
to  suppose  that  conversion  had  been  approached  in  a  mor- 
bid and  unhealthy  manner,  that  the  great  submission  had 
been  made  in  a  feverish  or  hysterical  frame  of  mind.  But, 
fortunately  for  the  truth,  the  statement  is  typical  of  Wil- 
liam Booth's  indifference  to  chronology.  The  attack  of 
fever  did  not  come  till  nearly  two  years  after  his  con- 
version, when  he  was  seventeen  years  of  age,  and  at  the 
threshold  of  his  extraordinary  career.  Conversion  was  fol- 
lowed, unfortunately  for  our  present  purpose,  by  about  two 
years  of  autobiographical  silence. 

Three  things  alone  are  known  with  any  degree  of  definite- 
ness  concerning  these  important  years.  We  know  that  the 
chief  friendship  of  his  youth  was  deepened  by  his  new  re- 
ligious experience;  we  know  that  the  humanitarian  instinct 
manifested  itself  in  at  least  one  act  of  touching  kindness; 
and  we  know  that  romance  for  the  first  time  knocked  at  the 
heart  of  this  young  voyager,  whose  chart  was  not  yet 
marked  for  boundless  adventures  of  quite  other  kind. 

When  the  friendship  of  William  Booth  and  William 
Sansom  began  is  not  clearly  known,  but  it  was  probably 
as  early  as  the  days  of  Nottintone  Place,  where  the  two 
boys  would  have  been  close  neighbours.  Will  Sansom,  as 
he  is  affectionately  called,  was  the  son  of  a  well-to-do  lace 
manufacturer.  His  social  circumstances  were  superior  to 
William  Booth's,  his  prospects  altogether  of  a  more  enviable 
nature.  Yet  from  very  early  days,  just  as  Ann  Booth  was 
the  chosen  friend  of  Sarah  Butler,  so  William  Booth  was  the 

58 


[CHAP.  IV]    WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON      59 

chosen  friend  of  this  fortunate  young  man;  and  in  both 
cases,  it  is  worthy  of  noticing,  the  friendship  persisted  when 
the  Booths  were  reduced  from  a  proud  poverty  to  a  staring 
and  emphatic  penury.  Something  there  must  have  been  in 
these  Booths  very  attractive  and  admirable. 

I  asked  jNIrs.  Osborne,  the  Sarah  Butler  of  those  days, 
if  William  Booth  was  at  all  violent  in  the  first  enthusiasm 
of  his  preaching.  "  Not  in  the  least,"  she  replied;  adding, 
''if  he  had  been.  Will  Sansom  would  have  curbed  him." 
This  answer  not  only  exhibits  Sansom  as  a  refined  and 
gentle  nature ;  it  shows  that  he  exercised  a  decided  influence 
over  William  Booth. 

Will  Sansom  is  described  as  a  very  handsome  young  man, 
romantic-looking,  and  marked  from  boyhood  by  the  intense 
and  dreadful  signs  of  consumption.  He  was  one  of  those 
whom  Maeterlinck  calls  the  Pre-destined.  "  The  men 
among  whom  they  dwell  become  the  better  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  them,  and  the  sadder,  and  the  more  gentle."  He 
was  of  the  company  "  who  look  at  us  with  an  eager  smile, 
and  seem  to  be  on  the  point  of  confessing  that  they  know 
all;  and  then,  towards  their  twentieth  year,  they  leave  us, 
hurriedly,  muffling  their  footsteps,  as  though  they  had  just 
discovered  that  they  had  chosen  the  wrong  dwelling-place, 
and  had  been  about  to  pass  their  lives  among  men  whom 
they  did  not  know."  In  this  case  the  youth  was  pro- 
foundly religious.  He  had  the  deep  absorbing  faith  of  a 
Gratray,  the  fervour  of  a  Pascal,  the  hastening  evangelical 
eagerness  of  a  Wesley.  The  nearer  he  approached  his 
youthful  death  the  more  passionately  did  he  seek  to  spread 
his  knowledge  of  the  truth.  But  always  he  was  refined 
in  manner,  persuasive  in  method,  winning  and  ingratiating 
by  nature. 

"  We  were  like  David  and  Jonathan,"  says  William 
Booth ;  and  Mrs.  Osborne  described  to  me  how  these  two 
young  men  were  always  together,  how  they  walked  about 
arm-in-arm,  how  they  both  had  the  same  stoop,  the  same 
pallor,  the  same  brightness  of  the  eyes.  The  friendship  was, 
noticed  by  other  people.  The  young  men  were  regarded  1 
by  their  circle  as  "  bosom  friends." 

It  is  not  often  in  biography  that  such  a   friendship  as 


6o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

this  is  recorded,  the  deep  and  affectionate  friendship  of  a 
young  man  prosperous  and  well-stationed  with  the  appren- 
ticed shop-assistant.  Religion  had  much  to  do  with  it.  but 
the  first  cause  appears  to  have  been  the  commanding  char- 
acter and  extraordinary  attraction  of  Wilful  Will. 

Some  time  after  William  Booth's  conversion,  these  two 
youths  were  attracted  by  the  friendless  condition  of  a  poor 
old  withered  beggar-woman  who  shuffled  about  the  streets 
in  horrid  rags,  endured  the  mockery  of  street  boys,  suffered 
the  persecution  of  Nottingham  "  lambs,"  and  slept  in  door- 
ways or  under  hedges  —  a  grotesque  parody  of  womanhood. 
William  Booth  must  have  seen  her  a  hundred  times  before 
his  conversion,  for  she  was  a  character  of  the  streets;  but 
it  was  not  until  after  his  conversion  that  her  deplorable 
destitution,  the  infinite  pity  of  her  forlorn  and  friendless 
state,  appealed  to 'his  compassion.  He  determined  to  rescue 
her  from  this  state,  and  consulted  Will  Sansom  as  to  the 
best  way  of  ensuring  her  welfare.  Then  they  went  about 
among  their  friends,  collected  money,  took  a  little  cabin, 
furnished  it,  and  installed  the  old  woman  within,  making 
provision  for  her  support.  The  most  wretched  creature, 
the  most  ridiculed  and  neglected  of  all  Nottingham's  mis- 
erables  had  moved  the  heart  of  William  Booth  to  compas- 
sion, and  upon  such  an  one  as  this  he  made  his  first  experi- 
ment in  social  work. 

During  this  period  in  his  life  he  imagined  that  his  earthly 
happiness  was  bound  up  with  the  life  of  a  girl  into  whose 
society  he  had  been  thrown  for  some  years.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  the  old  couple  who  had  first  introduced  him 
to  Methodism,  the  old  people  who  loved  him  because  he 
resembled  their  dead  son.  For  a  number  of  months  Wil- 
liam Booth  walked  about  the  world  believing  that  he  was 
in  love.  He  probably  discussed  the  matter  with  Will 
Sansom.  He  was  elated  by  the  discovery,  and  cherished  the 
thought  of  this  wonderful  passion  at  his  heart  with  a  fer- 
vour of  sentimentalism.  The  young  lady  sang  well,  and 
William  Booth,  who  then  could  not  sing  himself,  loved 
music  very  keenly.  It  was  a  great  pleasure  for  him  to  sit 
and  listen  to  the  singing  of  this  pretty  girl,  who  was  a  little 
older  than  himself. 


IV]  WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON         6i 

But  before  many  amorous  moons  had  waned,  the  young 
zealot  made  another  discovery,  as  startHng  and  much  more 
liberating  than  the  first.  He  discovered  that  he  did  not 
love  this  person  at  all,  that  she  was  not  his  inamorata,  and 
certainly  should  never  be  his  wife.  It  was  a  case  of  "  calf- 
love," he  says,  and  laughs  it  out  of  his  memory.  His  only 
obsession  was  religion. 

He  does  not  seem  to  have  suffered  at  this  period  from 
any  healthy  or  unhealthy  disquiet  of  soul.  His  disposition 
was  too  headlong  and  impulsive,  his  anxieties  too  outward 
and  unselfish  for  moonings  within  the  depths  of  his  own 
consciousness.  He  was  no  mystic,  and  he  was  no  prig ;  but 
he  suffered,  some  men  may  say  suffered  all  his  life,  from 
what  Arnold  called  Hebraism.  God  was  the  supreme  con- 
cernment of  his  life.  Everything  else  brought  into  relation 
with  this  immense  interest  dwindled  to  insignificance.  He 
had  something  of  Carlyle's  contempt  for  Art.  Science  had 
no  vital  attraction  for  him.  The  sports  and  amusements 
of  mankind  filled  him  with  contemptuous  impatience.  So 
tremendous  was  his  sense  of  God  that  he  never  questioned 
it,  rarely  scrutinized  it,  refusing  to  paralyze  his  devotion 
and  his  senses  by  a  moment's  incredulity  concerning  this 
subjective  conception  of  the  Infinite.  He  had  one  thought, 
to  live  absolutely  in  accordance  with  God's  will. 

In  the  year  1846,  when  he  was  seventeen,  came  the 
attack  of  fever  which  brought  him  "  to  the  edge  of  the 
River."  He  had  outgrown  his  calf-love,  he  was  deep  in 
the  friendship  of  Will  Sansom,  he  was  still  keen  about  suc- 
ceeding in  business,  above  all  other  things  earnest  in  re- 
ligion. 

The  visit  of  James  Caughey,  of  whom  a  description  is 
given  in  the  first  chapter,  occurred  at  this  time.  William 
Booth  caught  fire  from  the  flame  of  this  revivalist's  oratory. 
He  was  deeply  and  pervasively  influenced  by  the  uncom- 
promising realism  of  the  American  preacher.  It  may  have 
been  that  his  attack  of  fever  was  in  some  measure  due  to 
the  excitement  occasioned  throughout  Nottingham  by  this 
missionary.  He  went  to  all  the  services  he  could  attend, 
he  joined  in  the  singing  of  some  of  Charles  Wesley's  trium- 
phant battle-songs,  he  witnessed  scenes  of  conversion  which 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

were  extraordinarily  exciting,  anfl  he  saw  in  the  Hves  of 
many  of  his  neighbours  the  veritable  miracle  of  new  birth. 
Here,  at  last,  was  religion  in  action,  the  real  and  living 
religion  of  his  dreams.  He  gave  himself  up  to  it,  thought 
of  scarce  anything  else,  and  presently  was  laid  by  with  a 
raging  fever. 

While  he  tossed  on  his  bed,  over  the  dim,  struggling, 
and  shabby  shop  in  which  Widow  Booth  sold  tape  and 
cotton,  a  message  was  brought  to  him  from  Will  Sansom  — 
a  message  which  very  probably  saved  his  life.  Sansom 
sent  word  to  him  that  he  was  starting  an  open-air  mission 
in  the  slums  of  Nottingham,  and  bade  him  get  well  quickly 
and  come  and  help  him.  Here  was  medicine  and  vocation 
in  one!  The  message  rallied  the  spirit  of  the  sick  youth; 
it  was  like  a  trumpet-call  to  his  drooping  soul;  and  he 
rose  from  his  bed  as  soon  as  he  had  strength  to  stand,  and 
went  back  to  his  work  and  out,  for  the  first  time,  to  religious 
activity. 

More  memorable  in  his  life  than  1844  was  this  year 
of  grace  1846;  and,  fortunately,  it  is  from  this  point  that 
the  stream  of  biography  begins  to  flow  with  strength  and 
certainty,  li  his  souvenirs  d'cnfancc  are  misted  with  a 
Lethean  miasma,  if  his  memories  of  boyhood  are  little 
more  than  a  concordia  discors,  from  his  seventeenth  year 
onward  we  possess  almost  every  detail  and  every  fact,  al- 
most every  lineament  and  every  expression,  almost  every 
thought  and  shade  of  feeling,  for  the  composition  of  a 
faithful  portrait.  The  life  of  the  man  begins  from  1846; 
and  it  was  a  life  lived  so  frankly  and  honestly,  so  far  away 
from  the  morbid  centre  of  self -introspection,  so  completely 
at  that  uttermost  circumference  of  being  where  self  is 
consumed  in  a  passionate  care  for  others,  that  one  can  be 
sure  of  a  veritable  likeness.  No  man  ever  lived  who  kept 
back  less  of  himself  from  the  gaze  of  the  world,  or  who 
gave  more  of  himself  to  the  service  of  humanity. 

Will  Sansom  had  not  long  to  wait  for  an  answer  to  his 
message.  "  No  sooner  was  I  able  to  get  about  than  I 
gladly  joined  him."  But  William  Booth,  the  leader  of 
everything,  was  shy  and  self-conscious  of  speaking  in  the 
open,  or  of  speaking  at  all  in  public.     He  joined  in  the 


rv]  WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON         63 

services,  but  would  neither  preach  nor  pray.  Will  Sansom 
sang,  prayed,  and  preached.  He  was  helped  by  a  friend 
named  Samuel  Hovey,  by  Sarah  Butler,  and  by  one  of  her 
sisters  who  sang  beautifully.  William  Booth  contented 
himself  with  standing  in  the  group,  with  singing  in  the 
hymns,  with  exclaiming  Amen  in  the  prayers,  and  with 
speaking  privately  to  those  who  surrounded  the  company. 

But  the  influence  of  David  Greenbury  effected  a  change. 
This  evangelist  from  Scarborough,  of  whom  mention  has 
been  made  in  the  opening  chapter,  was  the  first  man  to 
realize  the  force  and  power  of  William  Booth  as  a  preacher. 
He  was  struck  by  Booth's  earnestness,  by  the  vigour  of 
his  personality,  and  by  his  remarkable  appearance  and  em- 
phatic manner.  He  urged  upon  the  young  man  that  it  was 
his  duty  to  speak,  that  he  owed  it  to  God  to  conquer  his 
timidity,  which  was  a  form  of  selfishness.  One  of  Booth's 
favourite  hymns  came  to  his  assistance.  He  was  haunted 
by  the  verse  — 

And  can  I  yet  delay 

My  little  all  to  give? 
To  tear  my  soul  from  earth  away 

For  Jesus  to  receive? 
Nay,  but  I  yield,  I  yield  ! 

I  can  hold  out  no  more; 
I  sink,  by  dying  love  compelled, 

And  own  Thee  conqueror. 

With  the  same  sudden  abandon  that  had  characterized 
his  surrender  two  years  before  to  the  urgence  of  conscience, 
he  now  not  only  threw  himself  into  the  work  of  street 
preaching,  but  became  the  recognized  leader  of  the  group. 

"  The  Meetings  we  held,"  he  says,  "  were  very  remark- 
able for  those  days.  We  used  to  take  out  a  chair  into  the 
street,  and  one  of  us  mounting  it  would  give  out  a  hymn, 
which  we  then  sang  with  the  help  of,  at  the  most,  three  or 
four  people.  Then  I  would  talk  to  the  people,  and  invite 
them  to  come  with  us  to  a  Meeting  in  one  of  the  houses." 
Of  Will  Sansom  he  says,  **  He  had  a  fine  appearance,  was 
a  beautiful  singer,  and  possessed  a  wonderful  gift  in  prayer. 
After  I  had  spoken  in  our  Open-Air  Meeting  he  would 
kneel  down  and  wrestle  with  God  until  it  seemed  as  though 


64  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

he  would  move  the  very  stones  on  which  he  knelt,  as  well 
as  the  hearts  of  the  people  who  heard  him." 

At  this  period  in-  his  life  there  was  nothing  of  that 
humorous  spirit  which  characterized  so  much  of  his  later 
work.  Sarah  Butler  says  that  his  nature  was  rather 
"  morose  and  melancholy."  He  was  "  tremendously  in 
earnest." 

There  is  still  living  in  Nottingham  a  very  old  woman 
who  knew  the  Booths  in  Sneinton,  and  remembers  the  first 
sermon  preached  by  William  Booth.  She  gave  me  an  ac- 
count of  that  sermon,  and  described  the  meetings  in  the 
cottages,  her  dim  eyes  shining  with  pleasure  through  their 
thick  spectacles,  her  face  illuminated  by  a  deep  joy. 

"  The  first  sermon  he  ever  preached,"  she  said,  "  was  in 
Kid  Street.  I  remember  it  very  well.  The  Meeting  was 
held  in  a  small  cottage.  It  was  at  eight  o'clock  at  night, 
and  he  had  come  straight  from  his  work.  There  was  a  box 
placed  upside  down  on  the  table  for  a  desk,  with  two  candles 
burning,  one  each  side  of  the  Bible.  The  door  stood  open, 
and  poor  women  came  into  the  tiny  parlour,  bringing  their 
own  chairs  with  them.  In  the  doorway  was  a  group  of 
men,  afraid  to  come  in  lest  they  should  be  converted,  but 
interested  in  this  new  way  of  preaching  religion.  They 
filled  up  the  doorway,  a  dark  little  crowd  that  extended  into 
the  street.  Will  Booth's  sermon  —  ah,  how  well  I  remem- 
ber it !  —  was  very  gentle  and  tender,  quite  different  from 
anything  else  I  ever  heard  him  say  to  the  people,  and  so 
strange  for  a  young  man  to  preach  that  it  almost  made  some 
of  the  women  smile.  He  talked  of  little  children  learning 
to  walk.  He  described  how  they  toddled,  and  swayed,  and 
came  near  to  falling.  He  said  how  difficult  a  thing  it  was 
for  little  babes  to  learn  the  use  of  their  legs,  to  trust  their 
tiny  feet,  and  to  advance  with  courage.  And  then  he  asked 
if  any  mother,  watching  her  child's  first  efforts  to  walk, 
would  be  cross  with  the  infant's  failure,  would  shout  at  it 
when  it  swayed,  would  sit  still,  unmoved,  when  it  fell  and 
hurt  itself.  Then  he  said  that  it  was  just  as  difficult  to  live 
a  true  Christian  life,  and  that  we  should  always  be  on  the 
look-out  for  helping  people,  especially  those  who  were  only 
just  beginning  to  live  that  life.     He  said  it  was  wrong  to 


IV]  WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON         65 

judge  them  when  they  failed,  and  just  as  wrong  to  sit  idle 
when -they  fell.  We  should  run,  and  lift  them  up,  and  help 
them.  Hard  words  would  not  help  them;  sitting  still 
would  not  "help  them ;  we  must  go  and  do  something  to 
make  it  less  hard  for  them  to  walk  straight." 

She  told  me,  too,  that  she  heard  one  of  his  earliest 
preachings  in  the  open  street.  The  scene  was  Red  Lion 
Square,  and  he  was  surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  poor  people. 

"  That  was  a  very  different  sermon !  "  she  exclaimed. 
"  He  called  out  in  his  great  voice  that  all  the  suffering  and 
sorrow  of  the  world  came  from  sin.  I  remember  how  he 
said,  *  Friends,  I  want  to  put  a  few  straight  questions  to 
your  souls.  Have  any  of  you  got  a  child  at  home  without 
shoes  to  its  little  feet  ?  Are  your  wives  sitting  now  in  dark 
houses  waiting  for  you  to  return,  without  money?  Are 
you  going  away  from  here  to  the  public-house  to  spend  on 
drink  money  that  your  wives  need  for  food  and  your  chil- 
dren for  shoes  ?  '  It  was  all  like  that.  And  then  he  read 
out  the  Wesleyan  hymn  which  has  the  verse : 

Misers!  for  you  His  life  He  paid; 

Your  basest  crime  He  bore : 
Drunkards !  your  sins  on  Him  were  laid 

That  you  might  sin  no  more. 

I  think  there  had  never  been  such  preaching  in  the  open 
streets  before.  One  of  his  other  favourite  hymns  had  the 
verse : 

Outcasts  of  men,  to  you  I  call, 

Plarlots  and  publicans  and  thieves  ! 
He  spreads  His  arm  to  embrace  you  all; 

Sinners  alone  His  grace  receives: 
No  need  of  Him  the  righteous  have, 
He  came  the  lost  to  seek  and  save. 

I  remember,  too,  how  he  was  insulted,  and  how  calmly  he 
bore  it.  Once,  while  he  was  preaching  in  Pump  Street,  a 
man  who  had  stopped  to  listen  suddenly  shouted  out,  shak- 
ing his  fist  at  the  preacher.  'You  liar!  you  liar!'  And 
^^^ill  Booth  just  looked  at  him,  and  said  in  a  very  soft, 
kindly  voice,  '  Friend,  it  was  for  you  He  died ;  stop,  and  be 
saved.'     He  was  alwavs  like  that." 


66  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        Ichap. 

There  is  another  old  body  living  in  Nottingham  who 
remembers  those  early  days,  a  very  rigid,  ultra-respectable, 
demure,  and  eloquent  spinster.  Her  brother  was  one  of 
William  Booth's  earliest  friends,  one  of  the  first  to  join  the 
little  group  of  street  preachers.  She  spoke  throughout  our 
conversation  with  emphatic  gravity,  very  plainly  conscious 
of  her  importance,  and  maintaining  an  aspect  of  preter- 
natural solemnity.  "  To  begin  with,"  she  said,  "  Billy 
was  rather  forward."  So  far  as  my  researches  go,  this  old 
lady  is  the  only  person  in  the  whole  world  who  ever  referred 
to  William  Booth  as  "  Billy."  He  was  sometimes  called 
by  his  father  in  childhood  "  Bill,"  and  among  his  associates 
he  was  known  as  "  Will  ";  but  no  one  else  that  I  can  find 
trace  of  ever  ventured  to  speak  of  him  with  the  extreme 
familiarity  of  "  Billy."  The  lady  seemed  to  use  this  name 
with  a  relish,  as  though  it  increased  the  prestige  of  her  ven- 
erable position  and  diminished  the  world-wide  fame  of  the 
great  evangelist  to  -a  humility  relatively  suitable. 

"You  must  not  misunderstand  me,"  she  said;  "he  was 
not  overbearing;  he  was  not  violent;  he  was  not  what  you 
would  call  domineering;  but  he  was  forward,  distinctly  for- 
ward. Yes,  he  was  a  forward  lad.  You  could  never  have 
kept  him  down.  You  could  never  have  held  him  back. 
He  was  bound  to  push  forward  and  take  the  lead  in  every- 
thing." 

"  Can  you  describe  him  to  me?  "  I  asked. 

"Describe  him?  Who?  Billy?  Oh,  yes.  Well,  he 
was  what  you  would  call  nice-looking.  I  shouldn't  say  he 
was  handsome.  At  any  rate  he  was  not  so  handsome  as 
you,  not  nearly." 

I  protested  —  as  well  I  might. 

"  He  was  too  pale  to  be  handsome,"  she  continued  crit- 
ically, ignoring  the  protest.  "  He  was  not  so  handsome 
as  you,  but  his  legs  were  longer.  I  should  describe  him  as 
a  nice-looking  lad.  He  was  tall,  yes,  decidedly  tall,  and  thin ; 
remarkably  so.  He  was  clean-shaven  in  those  days;  he 
wore  his  hair  long,  it  was  the  fashion  then,  and  his  hair 
was  as  black  as  coal;  he  had  a  stoop  in  his  shoulders,  and 
looked  as  if  he  had  outgrown  himself.  I  should  say  that 
he  was  perhaps  something  more  than  nice-looking.     I  should 


rv]  WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON         67 

call  him  strange-looking,  romantic-looking.  If  you  saw 
him  once  you  would  never  forget  him.  Of  course  his  nose 
was  very  striking-looking.  We  always  called  that  '  the 
Wellington.'  A  strange  face,  very;  so  pale,  so  white,  and 
with  all  that  black  hair,  and  those  piercing  eyes  —  yes,  a 
romantic  face  —  decidedly  so." 

Her  insistence  upon  the  romantic  character  of  his  appear- 
ance prompted  me  to  ask  a  question  to  which  I  had  long 
been  anxious  to  get  an  answer, 

I  began  by  asking  if  he  had  been  surrounded  from  the 
first  days  of  his  preaching  by  a  number  of  young  ladies. 

"  Well,  it  began  with  one  or  two,"  replied  the  demure 
spinster,  "  but  the  number  increased." 

"  Now,  I  wonder  if  you  can  tell  me,"  said  I,  as  non- 
chalantly as  the  circumstances  permitted,  "  whether  there 
is  any  truth  in  the  story  that  he  was  in  love  with  one  of 
those  young  ladies  ?  " 

As  though  I  had  made  a  most  scandalous  suggestion,  the 
venerable  lady  straightened  her  back,  regarded  me  coldly, 
and  replied  with  a  trenchant  scorn,  "  As  for  that,  I  will 
only  say,  speaking  from  a  long  experience  of  life,  that  the 
number  of  young  ladies  who  imagine  that  every  young  man 
they  meet  is  in  love  with  them  is  only  equalled  by  the 
number  of  young  men  who  go  about  the  world  fancying  that 
every  young  lady  that  looks  their  way  is  in  love  with  them. 
It  is  a  pity  it  should  be  so,  but  so  it  is.  As  for  Will  Booth, 
I  never  heard  that  he  was  in  love  with  anybody,  though  there 
was  some  talk  that  he  might  make  a  match  of  it  one  day 
with  a  very  sweet  young  lady  who  sang  at  his  meetings. 
But  I  should  be  at  a  standstill,  my  dear  sir,  I  really  should, 
if  I  was  to  try  and  tell  you  the  number  of  young  ladies 
who  were  in  love  with  him.  He  was  a  favourite.  He 
was  worshipped,  as  you  may  say.  And  I  think  he  was 
certainly  a  very  romantic-looking,  attractive,  and  interesting 
young  man." 

The  "  very  sweet  young  lady  who  sang  at  his  meetings  " 
was  a  sister  of  Sarah  Butler,  and  although  no  mention  is 
made  of  her  in  William  Booth's  autobiographical  notes,  it  is 
probable  that  he  did  look  upon  this  follower  with  a  some- 
what more  particular  and  personal  interest  than  the  others. 


68  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

It  is  certain  that  he  never  spoke  to  her  except  about  religion ; 
it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  in  any  way  "  keep  company  " 
with  her ;  but  in  one  way  or  the  other  his  followers  came  to 
regard  it  as  a  possibility  that  William  Booth  and  the  sweet 
singer  might  some  day  make  a  match  of  it;  while,  many 
years  after,  when  as  a  very  old  man  he  was  reminded  of 
this  young  lady,  and  told  of  the  expectation  which  existed 
among  the  others,  he  smiled  and  made  answer,  "  Ah,  I 
remember  there  was  such  a  person !  " 

It  seems  that  after  they  had  conducted  their  open-air 
meetings  and  finished  their  preachings  in  the  cottages,  this 
body  of  young  enthusiasts  would  sometimes  go  for  a  walk 
before  returning  to  their  homes.  But  there  was  never,  I 
am  told,  any  mingling  of  the  sexes  on  these  occasions. 
"  The  men  always  walked  together  in  front,  and  we  would 
follow  behind,"  says  Sarah  Butler.  Conversation  was  about 
religion.  Schemes  for  spreading  Christianity  were  dis- 
cussed. Particular  sinners  were  marked  down  for  personal 
appeals  and  private  prayer. 

"  I  remember,  however,"  Sarah  Butler  told  me,  "  one  of 
those  walks  when  we  more  or  less  travelled  together,  and 
conversation  turned  upon  other  things  beside  religion. 
Some  one  proposed  that  we  should  go  and  look  at  the  new 
railway  line  that  was  being  laid  at  Colwick.  It  was  a 
wonderfully  quiet  night.  The  moon  was  shining.  And  it 
was  summer-time.  Well,  we  were  very  happy  and  elated. 
We  loved  the  stillness,  the  fields,  the  woods,  and  the  moon- 
light. We  sang  as  we  walked.  We  rejoiced  in  our  hap- 
piness. And  I  think  William  Booth  did  walk  with  my  sis- 
ter for  a  little  time,  but  I  can't  be  certain.  However, 
nothing  came  of  the  walk,  or  of  any  other  meeting.  I  used 
to  think  they  were  in  love  with  each  other,  but  I  see  now  it 
was  only  a  fancy.  William  Booth  had  no  other  thought  in 
his  mind  at  that  time  than  preaching  to  the  people  and  sav- 
ing sinners  from  their  sin.  He  was  the  most  earnest  and 
enthusiastic  man  I  ever  knew  —  he  was  really  burning, 
really  on  fire,  to  save  souls.  He  used  to  say  that  we  were 
saved  to  save.  He  could  not  stand  people  who  said  their 
souls  were  saved  and  who  did  nothing  to  save  other  people. 
If  he  thought  of  my  sister  at  all,  it  was  only  a  passing 


IV]  WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON         69 

thought.  No  one  could  make  a  romance  out  of  it.  I  as- 
sure you  he  was  too  much  in  earnest  about  this  street- 
preaching  to  think  of  falling  in  love." 

We  see  this  group  of  young  people,  preaching  and  pray- 
ing in  the  streets,  holding  their  little  services  in  cottages, 
going  for  walks  in  sexual  separation,  whether  with  moon 
shining  or  not  shining,  meeting  in  chapel  on  Saturday, 
attending  classes,  discussing  sermons  and  gossip  of  chapel 
life  —  a  group  of  earnest  young  lives  conscious  of  God, 
conscious  of  God's  demand  upon  them,  and  preoccupied 
with  business  of  the  next  world  —  a  strange  and  lonely 
group  in  Nottingham,  making  no  great  stir  there,  in- 
curring some  local  ridicule,  and  occasioning  some  distinct 
alarm  and  misgiving  in  the  straight  minds  of  rigid  chapel 
orthodoxy. 

It  would  seem  that  the  great  humanitarian  spirit  of  the 
Christian  religion  had  not  yet  developed  in  the  soul  of 
\\'illiam  Booth.  He  was  a  member  of  the  Church,  he 
attended  the  services  of  that  Church,  and  his  labours  were 
directed  to  preaching  his  gospel  of  salvation  in  order  to 
save  people  from  hell  and  bring  them  into  membership  with 
his  Church.  The  Chartist  was  dead  in  him.  The  Methodist 
was  very  much  alive.  Years  were  to  pass  before  he  broke 
free  from  sectarianism,  before  he  reached  Christianity  as  a 
spirit  that  could  not  be  bound,  and  before  he  perceived  the 
concurrent  necessity  of  social  betterment  with  spiritual 
welfare. 

In  the  lives  of  few  religious  leaders  is  growth  more 
evident.  He  was  haunted  now  and  again,  as  we  shall  see, 
by  dogmas  and  theological  practices  which  had  once  formed 
part  of  his  religious  life,  but  he  was  never  deeply  perturbed 
by  these  old  clothes  of  his  youth,  and  in  his  normal  moods 
he  was  conscious  of  no  need  for  any  theology  in  his  service 
to  the  world  but  that  which  led  men  to  the  heart  of  Christ. 
He  grew  wonderfully,  he  developed  amazingly,  and  at  the 
end,  though  a  certain  hard  and  rigorous  strain  endured,  his 
spirit  was  one  of  the  sweetest,  tenderest,  most  tolerant  and 
gentle  that  ever  longed  for  spiritual  perfection. 

He  was  asked,  when  he  was  an  old  man,  by  a  friend  of 
his  youth  if  he  still  insisted  upon  some  particular  doctrine 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  his  youth.  The  answer  is  a  key  to  the  man's  soul.  Tap- 
ping his  friend  impatiently  on  the  breast  with  the  back 
of  his  hand,  he  said,  "  Look  here,  when  a  fellow  speaks 
to  us  like  that  we  tell  him  to  go  and  do  something."  This 
may  have  been  uttered  only  as  the  expression  of  a  mood, 
for  he  held  this  doctrine  himself,  but  such  utterance  shows 
that  his  emphasis  was  upon  service,  not  upon  speculation. 

But  it  was  years  before  he  could  give  such  a  great  and 
splendid  answer,  an  answer  so  robust  with  the  health  of 
true  and  manful  religion.  He  himself  had  to  grow  to  that 
answer.  For  years  he  was  interested  in  such  speculations, 
for  years  he  was  plagued  by  theology,  for  years  he  was  blind 
to  the  natural  and  shameful  causes  of  human  misery ;  but, 
although  to  the  end  of  his  days  he  believed  in  such  a  doctrine 
as  that  of  Entire  Sanctification,  and  although  he  never  tore 
up  the  documents  of  abstract  theology,  he  certainly  grew 
more  and  more  impatient  of  egoistic  introspection,  more  and 
more  insistent  upon  zvork  for  God. 

Nevertheless,  even  at  this  epoch  in  his  life,  there  are 
signs  of  the  wonders  that  were  yet  to  be.  One  catches 
glimmerings  of  an  original  mind,  flashes  of  a  spirit  that 
could  revolt  passionately  from  orthodoxy,  and  sparks  of  a 
soul  that  well  might  burst  into  flame  for  the  salvation  of 
unhappy  people. 

The  respectable  citizens  who  attended  Wesley  Chapel  — 
good,  solid  Christians  of  the  commercial  variety,  the  gentle- 
men in  broadcloth,  and  the  ladies  in  bombazine,  or  some 
other  notable  material  of  the  period  guaranteeing  moral 
value  and  financial  stability  —  these  goodly  and  satisfied 
souls  were  one  Sunday  morning  astonished  out  of  their 
senses  by  such  a  scuffling  of  broken  boots,  such  a  rustle  of 
shoddy  rags,  and  such  a  stertorous  breathing  of  congregated 
misery  as  never  before  had  desecrated  their  brick-and-mor- 
tar  habitation  of  Wesleyanism. 

William  Booth  had  made  himself  an  apostle  to  the  lads 
of  Nottingham  slums;  he  had  preached  to  them  in  the 
open,  gathered  a  circle  about  him,  and  was  on  fire  to  bring 
them  within  the  fold  of  the  Methodists.  If  he  was  happy 
kneeling  in  the  streets  at  night  and  praying  with  them,  he 
desired  to  be  happier  still  by  praying  with  them  on  Sunday, 


rv]         WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON         71 

praying  with  these  ragged  roughs  and  toughs  within  the 
consecrated  walls  of  Wesley  Chapel.  And  so  it  came  about 
one  Sunday  that  he  marched  his  first  regiment  of  the  ragged 
and  neglected  into  the  aisles  of  the  most  respectable  Temple, 
conducted  them  into  the  best  pews  he  could  find,  and  sat 
among  them  almost  quivering  with  satisfaction  and  delight. 
But  the  effect  of  this  invasion  was  not  what  he  had  hoped. 
The  young  enthusiast  was  called  before  Authority,  was 
argued  with,  was  instructed,  and  was  finally  told  that  he 
might  bring  these  outcasts  into  the  chapel  only  if  he  entered 
by  the  back  door  (invisible  behind  the  pulpit)  and  seated 
his  converts  in  obscure  benches  reserved  particularly  for  the 
impecunious  and  shabby. 

One  of  the  most  notable  Wesleyan  preachers  of  the 
present  time  cannot  think  of  this  and  other  incidents  con- 
nected with  Nottingham  Wesleyanism,  presently  to  be  de- 
scribed, without  an  angry  indignation.  He  can  see  per- 
fectly well  that  if  Hugh  Price  Hughes  and  many  another 
Wesleyan  preacher  of  later  times  had  been  minister  of  that 
chapel  in  Nottingham,  William  Booth  would  never  have 
been  lost  to  the  Methodists.  But  I  think  it  is  truer  to  say 
that  Hugh  Price  Hughes,  and  men  like  him,  both  among 
the  Methodists  and  the  Anglican  communion,  owe  their  en- 
thusiasm and  their  democratic  Christianity  to  the  Salva- 
tion Army,  and  that  this  Army  was  too  spontaneous  and 
original  an  expression  of  religious  experience  to  have  grown 
up  within  any  of  the  fixed  and  settled  Churches. 

As  for  this  particular  incident,  plainly  enough  there  is 
much  to  be  said  for  the  judgment  delivered  by  Authority. 
One  may  be  indignant  about  it  from  afar  ofif.  but  to  sit  for 
hours  among  a  company  of  unwashed,  malodorous,  and 
possibly  diseased  humanity  is  not  an  experience  healthful 
for  the  body  nor  conducive  to  religious  concentration.  It 
is  a  merit  in  William  Booth  that  he  saw  the  validity  of 
this  objection;  that,  young  and  headstrong  as  he  was,  he 
did  not  immediately  abandon  the  work;  that,  hurt  and 
chilled  as  surely  he  must  have  been,  he  yet  bowed  to  the 
ruling,  accepted  the  judgment,  and  obeyed  his  religious 
superiors. 

But  he  felt  more  and  more  the  call  of  the  streets.     As 


^2  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

soon  as  ever  his  work  would  allow,  he  was  preaching  to  the 
miserables  and  outcclsts  of  Nottingham,  seeking  sinners, 
interesting  the  indifferent,  thundering  the  wrath  of  God 
against  wickedness  and  transgression.  He  won  one  man 
who  was  famous  in  the  town  as  a  "  character,"  the  drunken, 
wife-beating,  humorous-minded  rascal,  known  as  "  Besom 
Jack,"  of  whom  mention  has  been  made.  This  man  had 
lived  an  utterly  abominable  life.  He  went  about  the  streets 
selling  brooms,  and  every  penny  that  he  gained  in  this 
manner  was  spent  upon  drink.  His  poor  wife  had  to  beg 
at  the  doors  of  her  neighbours  for  a  few  used  tea-leaves, 
which  she  boiled  up  afresh,  and  so  lived,  starving  and 
terrified.  Booth  won  this  man,  won  him  so  completely 
that  he  became  a  faithful  follower  of  the  street  preachers, 
working  for  them,  helping  them,  saving  the  old  companions 
of  his  drunken  days,  and  devoting  himself  in  his  home  to 
making  amends  for  his  past  iniquity.  His  conversion 
created  something  of  a  sensation.  It  was  not  recognized 
as  a  miracle,  but  it  was  talked  about  as  something  either 
amusing  or  interesting,  something  for  mockery  and  sneers, 
or  for  discussion  and  timorous  questioning,  according  to  the 
faith  or  no  faith  of  the  talkers. 

"  The  leading  men  in  the  Church  to  which  I  belonged," 

says  Booth,  "  were  afraid  I  was  going  too  fast,  and  gave 

me  plenty  of  caution,  quaking  and  fearing  at  every  new 

'departure,  but  never  a  word  of  encouragement  to  help  me 

■,on.     But  I  went  forward  all  the  same." 

He  remarks  that  there  were  many  indications  in  those 
early  events  of  the  organization  which  he  was  destined  to 
bring  into  existence  several  years  afterwards.  Not  only 
was  there  preaching  in  the  streets,  not  only  was  there  a 
tracking  down  of  particular  sinners,  not  only  was  there  a 
total  insistence  on  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  changed  heart, 
but  every  opportunity  was  seized  by  the  young  enthusiast 
for  striking  the  torpid  imaginations  of  the  people  with  the 
realities  of  spiritual  life.  One  of  his  followers,  for  instance, 
a  young  girl  of  humble  parentage,  was  brought  to  her  death- 
bed ;  William  Booth  and  his  friends  prayed  and  sang  at  her 
bedside;  she  died  with  the  expectation  of  heaven  shining  in 


IV]  WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  FIRST  SERMON  73 

her  face,  ancl  her  funeral  was  made  an  occasion  tor  triumph 
and  rejoicing.  To  the  end  of  his  days  he  never  forgot  that 
funeral.  He  remembers  that  it  was  snowing,  and  he  tells 
how  a  procession  was  formed  in  the  white  streets,  and  how 
the  body  of  the  girl  was  borne  to  her  grave  through  the 
snowfall  between  rows  of  watching  people,  and  followed  by 
his  regiment  of  helpers  singing  hymns  of  victory  and  joy. 

So  consumed  was  he  by  the  passion  for  saving  souls  that 
reticence  and  restraint  to  him  were  like  ropes  about  the  legs 
of  a  starving  man  seeking  for  food.  He  was  working  hard 
for  daily  bread,  it  nuist  be  remembered,  from  early  in  the 
morning  until  seven,  often  eight,  o'clock  at  night ;  it  was  only 
for  a  few  dark  hours  that  his  fiery  soul  had  opportunity  for 
seeking  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-creatures;  all  the  passion 
and  tremendous  sincerity  of  his  impetuous  spirit,  pent  up 
during  the  hours  of  uncongenial  toil,  burst  their  bonds  in 
the  brief  evenings  of  his  ministration  and  made  him  what 
men  call  a  zealot  and  a  fanatic. 

It  is  important  to  observe,  however,  that  the  thought 
of  entering  the  ministry,  of  giving  up  everything  for  the 
preaching  of  religion,  had  not  yet  even  occurred  to  his 
mind.  He  regarded  himself  as  a  layman.  He  considered 
that  one  of  the  first  charges  on  his  life  vv'as  the  support  of 
his  mother  and  sisters.  He  was  very  much  in  earnest  about 
his  future,  terribly  distressed  by  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
earning  a  living.  Again  and  again  the  complaint  breaks  out 
that  he  was  stung  with  bitterness  by  the  pitiful  position  in 
which  he  found  himself  placed  —  a  position  of  bound  ap- 
prentice to  a  niggardly  employer,  earning  but  a  small  wage, 
and  forced  to  witness,  he,  the  only  son  of  his  mother,  the 
calamitous  poverty  of  that  shabby  small  ware  shop  in  Goose 
Gate. 

He  had  been  sent  to  the  best  school  in  Nottingham ; 
he  had  been  encouraged  to  regard  himself  as  a  gentleman; 
the  talk  of  his  father  had  been  all  of  fortune-making  and 
fine  living;  until  he  was  thirteen  years  of  age  it  had  never 
once  occurred  to  him  that  he  would  have  to  work  hard, 
and.  working  hard,  find  himself  unable  to  support  life.  His 
mother  was   a   proud   woman,   of   better   family   than   his 


74  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH    [chap.iv] 

father;  his  sisters  were  girls  of  strong  character  and  im- 
patient of  poverty.  He  was  galled  by  his  helplessness, 
vexed  with  his  destiny. 

At  the  beginning  of  his  religious  zeal  he  was  opposed  by 
his  family.  His  efforts  to  spiritualize  the  life  of  his  home 
were  met  with  impatience  and  counter-attacks  upon  his 
new-found  theology.  Presently  he  gained  his  elder  sister, 
Ann;  later  he  won  his  invalid  sister,  Emma;  and  later  still 
Mary  Booth,  his  mother,  surrendered  to  his  insistent  appeals. 
But  for  some  years  he  received  scarcely  any  encouragement 
in  his  home,  and  at  the  beginning  was  definitely  withstood 
and  gainsaid. 

Therefore  we  have  the  drama  presented  to  us  of  a  young 
man  straining  every  nerve  .to  support  a  family  opposed  to 
the  divine  interests  of  his  innermost  life,  a  young  man 
committed  to  a  form  of  employment  extremely  distasteful 
to  his  mind,  who  felt  himself  urged  and  driven  by  the  Spirit 
of  God  to  seek  sinners  and  to  save  the  lost,  and  who  used 
every  minute  of  his  leisure  in  this  work  against  the  dis- 
couragement of  his  religious  superiors  and  the  opposition  of 
his  family.  If  those  who  later  in  his  career  did  not  scruple, 
but  actually  hastened,  to  attack  this  singular  and  pure- 
minded  man,  charging  him,  among  other  sins,  with  hypoc- 
risy and  cant  and  self-seeking  —  if  they  had  known  of  these 
first  chapters  in  his  religious  life,  had  known  of  his  cour- 
ageous devotion,  of  his  intense  solitude  of  soul,  of  his 
manful  struggle  against  forces  which  crush  heroism  and 
turn  enthusiasm  to  bitterness  and  despair,  surely  they  had 
laid  their  hands  upon  their  mouths.  He  experienced  in 
those  years,  and  for  many  years  afterwards,  a  ceaseless 
hindrance  to  the  clamour  of  his  soul;  and,  impulsive,  mas- 
terful, and  wilful  as  he  was  by  nature,  even  while  he  pressed 
forward  on  the  path  of  spiritual  duty,  he  yet  loyally 
bowed  his  back  to  the  burden  of  necessity  and  carried  his 
load  with  a  stout  heart.  He  not  only  helped,  so  far  as  he 
could,  to  support  his  mother  and  sisters,  but  he  looked  for- 
ward to  the  future  with  this  objective  always  before  his  eyes. 


I 


V 
CHAPTER  V 

WHAT    HE    BELIEVED    AT    THIS    TIME 
1845 

It  is  time  to  examine  the  theology  of  this  seventeen-year- 
old  youth,  the  theology  which  had  changed  the  direction 
of  his  life  and  laid  a  powerful  and  constraining  hand  upon 
the  impulses  of  his  passionate  nature. 

At  its  centre  this  theology  remained  the  religion  of  his 
long  life,  without  change  or  modification  of  any  kind.  In 
the  radius  of  its  circumference  there  were  changes  — 
changes  making  for  a  less  partial  outlook  on  human  life,  and 
producing  greater  tolerance  and  deeper  kindness  in  the  heart 
of  the  man ;  but  the  centre  was  constant  and  unshakable. 

He  had  been  guided,  he  tells  us,  largely  without  human 
intervention,  almost  entirely  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  to  per- 
ceive that  the  very  soul  of  the  Christian  Revelation  —  mak- 
ing it  a  religion  altogether  different  from  every  other  reli- 
gion and  every  other  philosophy  under  heaven  —  is  the  di- 
vine miracle  of  conversion.^  And  by  conversion  he  under- 
stood a  totally  changed  attitude  of  soul.  He  himself  had 
experienced  this  mystery,  he  himself  had  been  the  human 
means  of  producing  it  in  other  people;  nothing  in  the  world 
was  of  such  certain  and  absolute  reality  to  his  brain  and 
heart. 

He  became  at  this  time  impatient  of  political  agitation, 
abandoned  altogether  his  sympathy  with  Chartism,  regarded 
his  previous  pleasures  and  amusements  as  the  mere  follies 
of  childhood;  nothing  was  of  moment  now  but  the  mystery 
of  conversion.  To  the  drunkard  and  the  sensualist  who 
were  striving  to  fight  against  their  sins,  he  said,  "  It  is  useless 

^  A  well-known  psychologist  has  argued  that  conversions  are  known 
outside  the  Christian  religion ;  but  the  conversion  which  makes  Chris- 
tianity different  from  every  other  religion  is  the  conversion  which  re- 
sults in  a  life  of  love  to  God  and  unbroken  service  to  humanity,  par- 
ticularly to  the  humblest  and  the  most  sorrowful. 

75 


^d  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

for  you  to  struggle,  the  sin  is  stronger  than  you;  nothing 
can  come  of  your  efforts  except  defeat  and  death;  but, 
seek  a  change  of  heart,  surrender  yourself  entirely  to  God, 
leave  it  to  Him  to  overcome  your  temptations,  and  you  will 
find  victory  is  yours." 

He  saw  that  temptations  which  were  overpoweringly 
seductive  to  natural  man,  which  became  invested  with 
all  the  glamour  and  magic  of  a  strong  passion  to  souls 
conscious  only  of  their  bodies,  and  striving  only  with 
human  strength  to  contend  against  them,  became  instantly 
reduced  to  the  impotence  of  their  true  triviality  in  the  eyes 
of  a  soul  really  and  profoundly  conscious  of  God  and 
Eternity.  Conversion  with  him  was  the  divine  focus  re- 
vealing all  thoughts  and  all  things  in  their  absolute  per- 
spective. H,  by  the  power  of  Christ,  he  had  been  saved  by 
this  simple  miracle  of  conversion,  and  if  such  a  creature  as 
Besom  Jack  had  been  saved  by  the  same  means,  then  surely 
here  was  medicine  for  all  the  ills  of  the  whole  world  and  the 
true  path  to  everlasting  salvation. 

He  held  then,  and  held  to  the  end  of  his  days,  that 
directly  a  soul  is  converted  —  that  is  to  say,  directly  the 
spirit  of  a  man  looks  upon  earthly  life  with  the  sure  and  cer- 
tain knowledge  that  a  living  God  exists,  and  that  by  faith 
in  Christ  he  is  brought  into  harmony  with  that  God  — 
temptation  loses  its  power  and  the  soul  is  impelled  towards 
holiness.  Other  theological  doctrines,  with  which  now  we 
need  not  concern  ourselves,  flowed  from  this  fixed  centre 
of  his  life;  but  this  centre,  this  immovable  and  absolute 
centre,  was  the  heart  and  soul  of  his  religious  existence. 
How  a  man  was  to  gain  conversion  —  this  carried  him  into 
the  field  of  doctrine;  but  the  dogma  of  his  daily  life,  the 
conviction  of  his  active  soul,  was  the  central  and  illumina- 
ting dogma  of  a  New  Birth. 

In  a  sense  this  dogma  was  faithfully  preached  at  Wesley 
Chapel,  was  indeed  the  very  spirit  of  contemporary  Method- 
ism. But  it  was  held  formally  and  preached,  if  not  coldly, 
at  least  without  passion.  Above  all  things  it  was  preached 
mainly  to  the  converted.  Here  was  the  secret  of  life,  the 
Open  Sesame  of  distracted  and  perishing  mortality,  hidden 
away  in  respectable  chapels  and  kept  as  a  treasure  by  those 


V]         WHAT  HE  BELIEVED  AT  THIS  TIME       jj 

already  rich  with  blessings.  But,  outside  Wesley  Chapel, 
far  and  wide  under  the  smoke  of  a  roaring  God-scorning 
city,  stretched  the  slums  and  warrens  and  rookeries  of 
Nottingham;  and  there  men  were  living  in  sin  and  infamy, 
women  going  down  to  hell  in  a  legion,  children  perishing 
like  flies.  Was  no  one  to  tell  these  doomed  multitudes  that 
the  way  to  everlasting  felicity  was  plain  and  straight  before 
them?  \\^as  no  one  to  go  out  into  the  highways  and 
byways?  Was  no  one  to  go  as  a  physician  to  those  who 
had  no  physician  ?  Clearly  some  one  must  go  to  them ;  he 
and  his  friends  would  go ;  and  since  time  was  short,  since 
the  issues  were  of  such  awful  importance,  he  and  his  friends 
would  stop  at  nothing  to  rouse  these  miserable  poor  people 
to  the  glorious  news  of  salvation.  They  must  be  told  before 
it  was  too  late.  And  yet  A\hen  he  went  to  them,  at  the  end 
of  his  hard  day's  work,  he  found  them  for  the  most  part 
indifferent  to  his  good  news,  largely  inclined  to  make  a 
mock  of  him,  in  some  cases  definitely  disposed  to  obstruct 
and  molest  him. 

It  would  seem  that  he  did  not  scrutinize  this  apathy  or 
examine  this  antagonism.  He  was  too  young  in  years,  too 
impetuous  in  temperament,  too  absorbed  in  the  truth  of  his 
doctrine  for  calm  and  dispassionate  reflection.  Social 
wrongs  presented  themselves  to  his  eyes,  but  not  pressingly 
to  his  political  conscience.  Many  years  were  to  pass  over 
his  head  before  he  admitted  the  political  question  to  his 
mind  and  transformed  it  into  a  religious  question.  For 
the  present  he  was  a  preacher  of  conversion,  those  who 
heard  him  had  the  power  either  to  decide  for  God  or  to 
decide  for  the  Devil  —  his  business  was  to  declare  the  truth 
and  leave  the  rest  with  heavenly  Powers. 

One  perceives  that  if  he  had  been  more  strictly,  rigidly, 
and  exactly  honest  with  himself  —  the  rarest  virtue  in  the 
world,  and  among  headlong  and  impulsive  natures  almost 
impossible  —  he  would  have  realized  that  conversion  had 
not  solved  even  in  his  own  life  all  its  difficulties  and  all  its 
heartbreaking  obstructions.  He  was  very  poor,  in  spite 
of  incessant  toil ;  he  was  rendered  irritable  and  impatient 
by  the  blank  prospect  which  confronted  him;  he  was  often 
cast  down  and  utterly  dejected  by  the  misery  of  his  physical 


78  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

existence.  Conversion  had  saved  his  soul  and  sent  him  out 
to  save  the  souls  of  other  people,  but  it  had  not  eased  the 
burden  weighing  on  his  shoulders,  had  not  cleared  the 
horizon  of  banked  and  minatory  clouds,  certainly  had  not 
as  yet  flooded  his  soul  with  the  peace  that  passes  under- 
standing. 

But  the  boy  of  seventeen,  an  age  when  seriousness  is  rare 
and  introspection  is  almost  unnatural,  stopped  on  his  path 
for  none  of  these  considerations.  His  soul  was  certain  of 
the  one  mighty  fact  that  a  spiritual  change  of  most  won- 
derful and  divine  power  is  produced  by  conversion,  and  his 
burning  nature,  as  well  as  an  iron  sense  of  duty,  impelled 
him  forward  to  declare  this  Gospel  of  God. 

He  believed  in  hell,  as  he  believed  in  hell  to  the  end  of 
his  life,  but  whether  he  deliberately  and  full-consciously 
believed  that  all  those  who  heard  him  and  rejected  his 
message  would  perish  everlastingly  in  undying  flames  we 
cannot  determine.  It  would  seem  that  he  did  not  at  this 
period  of  his  life  penetrate  below  the  surface  of  dogmatic 
religion,  or  trouble  himself  with  any  of  those  dark  and 
awful  mysteries  which  his  practical  common  sense  would 
inform  him  are  insoluble  to  human  understanding.  He 
believed  in  God,  he  believed  in  Satan ;  he  believed  in  heaven, 
he  believed  in  hell ;  he  believed  that  Christ  had  died  to 
save  sinners,  he  believed  that  without  conversion  no  sinner 
could  be  saved  —  and  there  his  theology  stopped.  It  was 
the  theology  of  Wesley,  Whitefield,  and  of  George  Fox.  It 
was  the  theology  of  the  newly-born  evangelical  school  in 
the  Anglican  Church.  It  was  also  the  theology  of  an 
impassioned  boy,  headstrong  and  wilful,  who  had  his  living 
to  get  and  his  soul  to  save  from  damnation.  Not  a  whisper 
had  found  its  way  to  his  mind  of  a  possible  ascent  of  man 
through  a  long  and  blood-stained  cycle  of  ages  from  a  state 
of  animalism  to  a  condition  of  comparative  civilization ; 
no  blinding  realization  of  astronomical  discovery  had 
startled  his  soul  into  the  conception  of  a  universe  so 
appallingly  mechanical  and  so  infinitely  vast  that  the  m.ind 
at  first  shrinks  from  it  with  physical  dizziness  and  a 
kind  of  spiritual  anguish.  No  discipline  of  literature  had 
made  him  sceptical  of  historical  records  and  suspicious  of 


V]  WHAT  HE  BELIEVED  AT  THIS  TIME    79 

words  too  big  for  human  experience.  No  large  or  general 
acquaintance  with  life  had  brought  him  into  knowledge  of 
disabilities'  of  temperament,  inhibitions  of  heredity,  the 
fatigues  of  middle  age,  the  necessity  for  human  happiness. 
No  "  calm  and  critical  theology  "  had  paralyzed  his  soul 
with  doubts  that  are  a  check  to  enthusiasm,  with  comipro- 
mises  that  are  death  to  self-sacrifice  and  zeal. 

To  this  youth,  slaving  for  a  paltry  wage,  with  the  hopes 
of  a  gentleman's  life  abandoned,  all  promise  of  his  child- 
hood utterly  dissipated  from  before  his  eyes,  the  problem 
of  human  existence  was  simple  and  emphatic.  This  earth 
occupied  the  central  place  in  the  stellar  universe;  man, 
created  in  perfection,  had  chosen  sin  and  had  rejected  God; 
God,  in  His  mercy,  had  visited  and  redeemed  man;  man 
had  it  in  his  power,  every  man,  to  accept  or  to  disdain  that 
redemption ;  everlasting  happiness  would  be  the  lot  of  those 
who  accepted,  everlasting  misery  the  lot  of  those  who 
rejected,  the  Divine  mercy.  This  was  his  theology,  the 
theology  of  his  particular  Church,  the  theology  of  all  the 
Churches,  the  absolute  and  indubitable  theology  of  the 
whole  of  Christendom.  But  William  Booth  believed  in  it 
with  all  the  honest  passion  of  his  soul,  and  believing  it  so 
passionately  and  realistically,  how  could  he  go  through  life 
hugging  to  his  soul  the  certainty  of  his  own  salvation, 
careless  of,  indifferent  to,  the  equal  certainty  of  damnation 
for  all  those  who  did  not  believe?  He  was  too  honest  a 
man  for  that,  too  genuine  a  realist  for  such  self-deception. 

But  not  yet  had  his  soul  seized  the  fulness  of  the  faith 
that  was  in  him.  He  was  very  much  set  upon  improving 
his  worldly  prospects;  he  was  perfectly  content  that  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  should  be  spent  in  earning  money 
for  his  self-support;  he  was  satisfied  if  he  gave  his  brief 
leisure  to  this  work  for  the  Kingdom  of  God.  He  differed 
from  the  great  majority  of  his  fellow-believers  chiefly  in 
this  respect,  that  so  intense  was  his  faith  in  the  blessing  and 
necessity  of  conversion,  so  fixed  was  his  conviction  that  a 
man  was  "  saved  to  save,"  that  he  used  every  moment  of 
his  leisure  to  extend  the  knowledge  of  this  truth.  And 
because  of  this  "  the  leading  men  in  the  Church  gave  him 
plenty"  of  caution" — afraid  that  he  was  "going  too  fast." 


CHAPTER  VT 

OBEDIENCE   TO   AUTHORITY    COUPLED    WITH    THE 
DETERMINATION    TO   ACHIEVE    GREATNESS 

I 845-1 848 

Wesley  Chapel  is  a  building  typical  of  Victorian  Method- 
ism. A  slight  concession  is  made  to  architecture  in  the 
fagade,  which  aims  in  stucco  at  a  Grecian  Ionic  effect  with 
fluted  columns  and  a  triangular  pediment  over  the  portico; 
but  for  the  rest  everything  is  severely  ordered  for  useful 
service  and  downright  hard  work.  No  effort  is  made  to  lay 
a  spell  upon  the  senses  with  dim  windows,  branching  pillars, 
timbered  roof,  and  twilight  aisles  conducting  to  a  holy  of 
holies.  Worshippers  here  are  evidently  expected  to  bring 
with  them  their  own  warmth  and  tenderness,  their  own 
passionate  but  invisible  sense  of  beauty,  their  own  mood  of 
thanksgiving,  aspiration,  and  worship. 

Historians  of  the  nineteenth  century  will  probably  pay 
some  attention  to  this  architecture  of  Nonconformity  —  this 
deliberate  effort  of  the  religious  conscience  to  do  without 
aids,  this  evident  suspicion  and  dislike  of  beauty,  this  rather 
hard  and  insensible  insistence  on  utility.  What  monuments 
exist  more  eloquent  of  the  stern  and  pugnacious  spirit  which 
accompanied  the  middle  classes  of  England  from  the  ruins 
of  aristocracy  to  the  first  foundations  of  democracy?  More 
than  a  touch  of  the  Puritan  is  in  this  early  Victorian  archi- 
tecture of  Nonconformity;  one  sees  there,  visible  and  proud, 
the  firm,  masterful  trade-mark  of  a  practical  commercialism. 
Not  only  was  a  chapel  intended  to  defy  the  pagan  traditions 
of  architecture,  not  only  was  there  to  be  an  entire  absence 
of  Popish  ornamentation  and  sacramental  imagery,  but 
advantage  was  to  be  taken  of  every  possible  contrivance 
that  bricks  and  mortar  could  give  for  the  work  of  a  business- 
like and  organized  religious  centre.  A  chapel  was  intended 
to  be  not  only  a  place  of  worship  but  a  place  of  business. 

80 


[CHAP.  VI]       OBEDIENCE  TO  AUTHORITY  8i 

It  was  no  longer  merely  a  humble  and  obscure  dwellins:- 
place  for  despised  dissenters,  but  a  prosperous  and  challeng- 
ing headquarters  of  a  conquering  Church. 

In  some  measure  this  spirit  indicated  a  return  to  the 
middle  ages,  when  churches  were  not  kept  locked  and  empty 
for  six  days  and  only  dismally  opened  for  a  few  lugubrious 
hours  on  the  seventh,  but  when  they  were  the  scene  of  many 
astonishing  festivities  throughout  the  week.  The  Non- 
conformist rightfully  regarded  with  horror  the  locked  door 
of  the  State  Church.  He  determined  that  his  protesting 
chapel  should  be  open  from  week-end  to  week-end,  not  for 
the  wicked  festivities  of  the  dark  ages,  not  for  the  vain 
repetition  of  ritual  and  liturgy,  but  for  every  possible  func- 
tion which  would  serve  the  religious  life  of  the  district. 

In  the  case  of  Wesley  Chapel  —  likely,   on  account  of 
William  Booth,  to  be  a  place  of  pilgrimage  so  long  as  it 
stands  —  one  may  see  very  perfectly  this  spirit  of  practical 
and  business-like  Nonconformity.     The  building  is  lofty  and 
spacious,  with  wide  galleries,  a  large  central  platform  for 
the  minister,  a  clear  view  from  side  to  side,  and  no  sugges- 
tion  whatever  of   a   sensuous  purpose.     Only  behind   the 
preacher's  back  are  there  any  seats  of  obscurity  —  the  free 
seats  hidden  away  by  the  back  entrance  to  which  William 
Booth's  ragged  regiment  was  condemned  in  the  late  forties. 
But  it  is  under  the  floor  of  the  chapel,  in  the  basement,  that 
the  spirit  of  the  place  most  clearly  communicates  itself  to 
the  visitor.     Here,  in  a  rather  bad  light  it  is  true,  and  with 
no  very  satisfactory  supply  of  fresh  air,  are  numerous  class- 
rooms, vestries,  offices,  and  minor  halls  for  meetings,  Sun- 
day schools,  and  choir  practices.     One  feels  in  going  from 
room  to  room  of  this  immense  basement,  penetrating  gloomy 
corridors,  opening  endless  doors,  and  passing  up  and  down 
flights  of  stone  stairs  with  iron  banisters,  that  one  is  ex- 
ploring some  centre  of  local  government  —  a  town  hall  or  a 
court  of  justice.     It  is  all  so  entirely  dififerent  from  the 
crypt  of  a  church,  that  one  is  not  in  the  least  surprised  to 
see  men  with  hats  on  their  heads,  or  to  hear  loud  voices  and 
laughter.     It  impresses  one  with  the  sense  of  a  spirit  which 
is  active,   thorough,    economical,   and   practical  —  a   spirit 
which  has  no  time  for  celebrating  a  victory  or  keeping  a 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

memorial,  so  eager  is  it  to  drill  and  marshal  every  soldier  of 
religion  for  the  battle  of  the  present  hour. 

It  was  in  this  great  cold  barrack  of  a  chapel  that  the 
soul  of  William  Booth  opened  to  religious  influences.  It 
was  within  these  bare  and  chilling  walls  that  he  was  first 
conscious  of  spiritual  warmth,  first  felt  his  life  kindled  by 
the  imagination  of  God.  Untouched  by  the  beauty  of  the 
Anglican  liturgy,  utterly  unmoved  by  the  innovations  of 
the  Puseyite  clergyman  of  Sneinton  Church,  this  dissatisfied 
and  unruly  youth,  this  excitable  boy  interested  in  Chartism, 
found  himself  quickened  into  new  and  most  wonderful  life 
under  the  whitewashed  ceiling  of  a  Methodist  chapel,  there 
discovered  for  the  first  time  his  possession  of  a  soul.  Some- 
thing came  to  him  in  this  chapel  which  had  hitherto  not  come 
to  him  anywhere  —  neither  in  his  home  nor  his  church, 
neither  in  the  crocus  meadows  of  the  Trent  nor  the  stirring 
streets  of  Nottingham.  And  when  the  illumination  came, 
the  magic  which  transformed  at  the  same  moment  his  own 
inner  life  and  the  whole  world  surrounding  him,  he  threw 
himself  with  a  passionate  ardour  into  the  mechanic  activities 
of  this  thriving  chapel,  became  one  of  the  workers,  pro- 
gressed till  he  was  a  street  missionary,  and  finally  found 
himself  at  the  age  of  nineteen  an  accredited  local  preacher. 

We  have  already  seen  in  what  manner  he  was  converted ; 
it  is  now  our  work  to  study  the  life  of  the  eager  boy  as  an 
orthodox  and  unquestioning  Methodist.  On  the  surface 
these  years  of  his  existence  would  seem  the  most  dull  and 
the  least  interesting,  but  in  truth  they  are  years  of  singular 
significance  to  the  history  of  his  life.  For  they  witness, 
almost  more  than  all  the  other  changes  in  his  career,  to  the 
principle  of  growth  and  development;  they  show  us  that 
William  Booth  grew  gradually  to  be  what  he  was,  and  that 
he  was  veritably  forced  into  Salvationism  by  the  pressure 
of  circumstances ;  they  reveal  to  us  that  at  the  threshold 
of  manhood  William  Booth  was  a  disciplined  and  obedient 
member  of  an  organized  and  earnest  sect,  a  youth  only 
different  from  other  youths  who  attended  this  same  chapel 
in  the  capacity  of  his  soul  to  grow,  in  the  force  and  power  of 
his  character  to  increase  its  energies. 

The  minister  of  this  chapel  at  that  time  was  the  Rev. 


VI]  OBEDIENCE  TO  AUTHORITY  83 

Samuel  Dunn,  superintendent  of  the  circuit,  a  man  of  some 
scholarship,  autocratic,  hard,  obstinate,  and  incurably 
radical.  He  was  destined  to  become  one  of  the  Reformers 
who  rent  the  Wesleyan  body  in  twain,  one  of  the  famous 
five  ministers  expelled  from  the  Wesleyan  Church  on  a 
question  of  its  government.  William  Booth  spoke  always 
well  of  this  man,  saying  that  he  was  kind  to  him,  encouraged 
him,  helped  him :  but  it  was  the  kindness  of  a  headmaster 
to  a  boy  in  the  second  form,  the  encouragement  of  a  general 
to  a  private  soldier,  the  help  which  a  bishop  may  stoop  to 
give  to  a  sacristan  or  a  Sunday  school  teacher;  there  was 
nothing  of  warmth  and  generosity  in  this  kindness;  it 
was  always  cold,  formal,  and  aloof.  Nevertheless  in  the 
austerity  of  the  minister,  his  unbending  rigidity,  and  his 
severe  earnestness,  the  young  William  Booth  saw  something 
to  honour  and  respect,  sometliing  to  which  he  could  look  up, 
and  something  of  which  he  stood  always  in  a  little  awe. 
And  in  the  services  of  the  chapel  conducted  by  this  austere 
minister,  he  got  all  the  warmth,  fire,  and  excitement  that 
his  soul  desired. 

There  were  Love  Feasts  on  Sunday  afternoons,  when 
men  spoke  freely  of  their  religious  experiences;  at  night 
the  great  chapel,  which  held  at  that  time  eighteen  hundred 
people,  was  filled  chiefly  with  working-class  members,  and 
after  this  service  there  was  a  prayer-meeting,  free  of  all 
ritual  and  formality,  at  which  men  uttered  their  supplica- 
tions with  a  fervour  and  a  freedom  unknown  at  the  present 
time.  Conversion  was  the  central  doctrine  of  the  Meth- 
odists, and  at  the  evening  services  sinners  were  invited  to 
confess  their  sins,  to  elect  then  and  there  for  God,  and  to 
prove  the  reality  of  their  hunger  for  Divine  mercy  by  com- 
ing inside  the  communion-rails  and  there  giving  themselves 
up  to  Christ.  The  oratory  of  James  Caughey  had  given 
fresh  impulse  to  this  revival  of  the  old  Methodist  teaching, 
and  none  who  worshipped  in  that  chapel  was  more  con- 
vinced of  the  need  for  conversion  than  William  Booth,  none 
more  earnestly  proclaimed  this  doctrine  of  the  miracle. 
Caughey  had  preached  an  unforgettable  sermon  on  the  words 
recorded  in  St.  Mark,  "  Therefore  I  say  unto  you,  what 
things  soever  ye  desire,  when  ye  pray,  believe  that  ye  receive 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

them,  and  ye  shall  have  them  " —  words  whose  meaning  is 
only  now  coming  home  to  the  minds  of  multitudes  of  men 
with  a  significance  scarcely  glimpsed  by  the  American  re- 
vivalist. Prayer  was  regarded  as  the  wrestling  of  a  soul 
with  God ;  it  did  not  suffice  the  Methodists  to  kneel  in  decent 
propriety,  listening  to  the  recital  of  a  printed  prayer,  or 
repeating  in  low  and  reverent  voice  a  supplication  as  familiar 
to  the  mind  as  the  alphabet.  This  might  serve  on  occasion, 
at  the  fashionable  morning  service,  for  instance ;  but  at  Love 
Feasts,  at  certain  of  the  evening  services,  and  at  the  prayer- 
meetings,  a  fervent  and  even  clamorous  supplication  led  the 
way  to  remarkable  conversions. 

They  believed  that  conversion  was  a  distinct  and  in- 
stantaneous experience,  and  that  the  soul  thus  converted 
received  "  the  Witness  of  the  Spirit  "  to  the  forgiveness  of 
sins  and  adoption  into  the  family  of  God.  They  believed 
also  that  the  converted  soul  may  press  forward. to  a  higher 
experience  of  Grace,  that  known  as  the  state  of  Entire 
Sanctification.  A  man  decisively  and  instantaneously  con- 
verted might  of  course  grow  cold  in  his  faith,  might  fall  into 
sin,  might  even  lapse  into  the  darkness  of  atheism;  but  a 
man,  advancing  from  conversion  and  achieving  through  the 
Spirit  of  God  the  condition  of  Entire  Sanctification  could 
become  so  purified  that  sin  had  no  more  lure  for  him ;  he 
was  not  only  saved,  he  was  at  unity  with  the  purpose  of 
his  Creator.  Therefore  at  these  Love  Feasts  and  prayer- 
meetings,  not  only  did  men  pray  that  sinners  might  be 
converted,  but  that  they  themselves  might  deepen  their 
spiritual  life,  and  that  they  might  enter  into  this  blissful 
condition  of  Entire  Sanctification  and  be  free  of  the  stain 
of  sin  for  evermore. 

"  They  like  to  dabble ! "  was  one  of  William  Booth's 
disdainful  remarks  in  later  life  concerning  those  who  talk 
on  the  surface  of  these  great  matters  and  never  plunge 
below  to  the  actual  experience  of  holiness.  He  was  em- 
phatic from  those  early  days  to  the  end  of  his  life  on  this 
doctrine  of  persistent  faith,  on  this  d-octrine  of  Entire 
Sanctification.  He  never  changed  h-is  mind  in  this  respect. 
He  could  as  easily  have  changed  his  skin  as  changed  in  this 
belief  which  had  become  the  very  core  of  his  character. 


VI]  OBEDIENCE  TO  AUTHORITY  85 

The  dangers  of  this  doctrine  do  not  concern  us  at  this 
point  in  the  narrative,  nor  need  we  defend  such  a  man  as 
William  Booth  from  the  charges  of  hypocrisy,  self-right- 
eousness, and  spiritual  intoxication  which  odious  or  foolish 
creatures  have  so  often  and  disastrously  associated  with 
it  in  their  efforts  either  to  exalt  themselves  or  to  deceive 
their  fellow-men.  Conversion  was  preached  in  Wesley 
Chapel,  and  this  conversion  was  the  conversion  that  turned 
a  radically  bad  man  into  a  radically  good  man,  a  miracle 
visible  to  all,  provable  by  all.  William  Booth,  himself 
converted,  believed  in  conversion  as  the  only  way  of  en- 
trance into  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven ;  and  he  believed  in 
Entire  Sanctification  as  the  great  proof  that  his  spirit  was 
advancing  in  holiness. 

It  was  because  he  found  this  depth  of  religious  teaching 
among  the  Methodists  that  he  gave  himself  with  unquestion- 
ing loyalty  to  their  Church.  Had  there  been  any  other 
church  in  existence  which  more  earnestly  proclaimed  the 
same  doctrine,  or  more  fervently  practised  the  same  method 
of  religious  propaganda,  beyond  a  question  his  ardour 
would  have  carried  him  into  their  midst.  But  there  was 
no  other  church,  and  therefore  for  him  this  was  the  veritable 
Church  of  Christ,  and  he  loved  it  with  so  great  a  love  that 
at  the  very  end  of  his  days  he  spoke  at  times  of  the  Wesleys 
and  the  Alethodists  with  a  deep,  almost  wistful  affection. 

One  might  have  thought  that  a  nature  so  strong  and 
imperative  would  have  found  even  in  youth  many  points  of 
divergence  in  the  Methodist  body,  would  have  been  critical 
of  them,  impatient  of  his  elders,  scornful  of  any  authority 
over  him.  But  so  far  was  this  from  being  the  case  that 
William  Booth  was  for  some  time  a  contented  member  of  a 
Class  "  led  by  "  an  old  man  who  acted  as  the  chapel-keeper, 
one  known  familiarly  as  Sammy  Statham  —  a  genial,  fat- 
faced,  side-whiskered  old  man  who  is  said  to  have  looked 
like  an  alderman's  coachman.  On  one  occasion  the  minister 
of  the  chapel,  Samuel  Dunn,  w^anted  a  young  man  to  do  some 
village  preaching  for  him,  and  mentioned  the  matter  to  his 
chapel-keeper,  then  holding  his  Class.  Statham  said  that 
he  knew  the  very  man,  and  summoned  William  Booth  before 
the  minister.     When  he  was  asked  if  he  thought  he  could 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

preach,  Booth  rephed  confidently  that  he  had  been  preach- 
ing now  in  the  streets  for  some  time.  And  to  this  the  great 
Dr.  Dunn  made  answer,  "  By  whose  authority  ?  Have  I 
given  you  leave?  "  Instead  of  revolt  William  Booth  bowed 
his  head  and  accepted  the  rebuke. 

He  was  so  far  from  being  a  rebel  that  he  hesitated  before 
the  dignity  of  becoming  a  regular  minister  of  this  Church. 
There  is  no  doubt  whatever  that  he  regarded  his  preaching 
in  the  streets  and  his  labour  among  the  sinners  of  Notting- 
ham slums  as  religious  duties  of  his  leisure  time;  that  he 
considered  it  the  first  necessity  of  his  life  to  earn  money, 
provide  for  his  mother,  and  make  his  own  way  in  the  world. 
He  was  tremendously  in  earnest  about  his  religious  work, 
inordinately  earnest  perhaps;  but  this  great  earnestness 
was  only  the  earnestness  of  a  good  layman.  He  was  poor; 
he  suffered  the  deprivations  of  poverty;  and  life  was  em- 
bittered by  the  financial  struggle  to  exist  even  in  the  most 
humble  circumstances.  His  proud  spirit,  his  ambitious 
nature,  urged  him  away  from  "this  hateful  inhibiting  poverty; 
and  if  he  worked  for  his  Church,  and  gave  almost  every 
moment  of  his  scant  leisure  to  religious  labours,  in  the  busy 
hours  of  his  daily  life  he  dreamed  of  commercial  greatness 
and  success  in  the  world  of  toiling  men. 

One  of  his  companions  at  this  time,  Walter  James  of 
Sneinton  Hollows,  remembers  walking  with  William  Booth 
past  Sneinton  Church  one  day,  and  suddenly  being  asked 
the  inconsequent  question,  "Have  you  no  ambition?" 
James  looked  at  him,  surprised,  and  asked,  "  What  do 
you  mean  ? "  He  replied,  "  Because  I  have ;  I  intend 
to  be  something  great;  I  don't  mean  to  belong  to  the 
commonalty." 

This  desire  to  accomplish  something  was  always 
smouldering  in  the  heart  of  the  youth.  He  did  not 
realize  that  greatness  was  to  come  to  him  in  the  religious 
life  which  as  yet  he  loved  only  as  one  loves  a  favourite 
crotchet.  He  saw  this  greatness,  to  which  the  qualities 
of  his  nature  impelled  him,  as  victory  to  be  wrung  after 
immense  struggle  from  a  hard  world  —  victory  and  success, 
wealth  and  power,  position  and  honour.  Always  he  would 
be  a  faithful  Methodist,  always  he  would  be  a  devout  and 


VI]  OBEDIENCE  TO  AUTHORITY  87 

earnest  Christian,  always  he  would  be  a  worker  for  religion; 
but  also  he  would  be  a  man  of  position  and  power  in  the 
secular  world. 

That  religion  was,  nevertheless,  the  most  potent  force  in 
his  life  is  abundantly  manifest.  A  loss  which  might  have 
quenched  his  ardour  and  driven  him  into  privacy  occurred 
in  his  nineteenth  year.  Will  Sansom  died.  There  were 
others  among  the  chapel  youths  who  accepted  Booth's  lead- 
ership, but  Will  Sansom  was  the  friend  of  his  soul  and  the 
supremest  human  inspiration  of  his  missionary  labours. 
And,  as  it  happened,  with  Will  Sansom's  death,  the  chilling 
hand  of  authority  was  laid  upon  W^illiam  Booth.  "  I  had 
to  go  forward  all  alone,"  he  says.  "  in  face  of  an  opposition 
which  suddenly  sprang  up  from  the  leading  functionaries 
of  the  church."  With  no  Jonathan  at  his  side,  and  followed 
only  by  timorous  youths  who  looked  to  him  for  leadership, 
the  lad  went  on  with  his  street  preaching,  his  cottage  prayer- 
meetings,  and  his  face-to-face  encounters  with  notorious 
profligates ;  using  means  which  startled  orthodoxy  and  in- 
venting methods  wholly  unsanctioned  by  traditional  author- 
ity. ]\Ioreover,  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice  for  his  religious 
instincts  his  very  means  of  subsistence,  was  prepared  to 
kick  away  from  his  feet  the  ladder  by  which  his  father  had 
promised  him  that  he  should  ascend  to  riches,  and  to  which 
he  now  clung  desperately  enough  for  daily  bread. 

I  have  told  you  how  intense  had  been  the  action  of  my 
conscience  before  my  conversion.  But  after  my  conversion  it 
was  naturally  ever  increasingly  sensitive  to  every  question  of 
right  and  wrong,  with  a  great  preponderance  as  to  the  impor- 
tance of  what  was  right  over  what  was  wrong.  Ever  since  that 
day  it  has  led  me  to  measure  my  own  actions,  and  judge  my  own 
character  by  the  standard  of  truth  set  up  in  my  soul  by  the 
Bible  and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  it  has  not  permitted  me  to  allow 
myself  in  the  doings  of  things  which  I  have  felt  were  wrong 
without  great  inward  torture.  I  have  always  had  a  great 
horror  of  hypocrisy  —  that  is,  of  being  unreal  or  false,  however 
fashionable  the  cursed  thing  might  be,  or  whatever  worldly 
temptation  might  strive  to  lead  me  on  to  the  track.  In  this  I 
was  tested  again  and  again  in  those  early  days,  and  at  last  there 
came  a  crisis. 

Our  business  was  a  large  one,  and  the  assistants  were  none 
too  many.     On   Saturdays  there  was  always  great  pressure. 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Work  often  continued  into  the  early  hours  of  Sunday.  Now  I 
had  strong  notions  in  my  youth  and  long  after  —  indeed,  I  en- 
tertain them  now  —  about  the  great  importance  of  keeping  the 
Sunday,  or  Sabbath  as  we  always  called  it,  clear  of  unnecessary 
work. 

For  instance,  I  walked  in  my  young  days  thousands  of  miles 
on  the  Sabbath,  when  I  could  for  a  trifling  sum  have  ridden  at 
ease,  rather  than  use  any  compulsory  labour  of  man  or  beast  for 
the  promotion  of  my  comfort.  I  still  think  we  ought  to  abstain 
from  all  unnecessary  work  ourselves,  and,  as  far  as  possible, 
arrange  for  everybody  about  us  to  have  one  day's  rest  in  seven. 
But,  as  I  was  saying,  I  objected  to  working  at  my  business  on 
the  Sabbath,  which  I  interpreted  to  mean  after  twelve  o'clock  on 
Saturday  night.  My  relatives  and  many  of  my  religious  friends 
laughed  at  my  scruples ;  but  I  paid  no  heed  to  them,  and  told 
my  master  I  would  not  do  it,  though  he  repHed  that  if  it  were  so 
he  would  simply  discharge  me.  I  told  him  I  was  willing  to 
begin  on  Monday  morning  as  soon  as  the  clock  struck  twelve, 
and  work  until  the  clock  struck  twelve  on  Saturday  night,  but 
that  not  one  hour  or  one  minute  of  Sunday  would  I  work  for 
him  for  all  his  money. 

He  kept  his  word,  put  me  into  the  street,  and  I  was  laughed 
at  by  everybody  as  a  sort  of  fool.  But  I  held  out,  and  within 
seven  days  he  gave  in,  and  thinking  my  scrupulous  conscience 
might  serve  his  turn  he  told  me  to  come  back  again.  I  did  so, 
and  before  another  fortnight  had  passed  he  went  oflf  with  his 
young  wife  to  Paris,  leaving  the  responsibilities  of  a  business 
involving  the  income  and  expenditure  of  hundreds  of  pounds 
weekly  on  my  young  shoulders. 

From  this  incident  it  will  be  seen  that  William  Booth 
had  established  himself  in  the  confidence  of  his  employer, 
and  was  first  among  the  assistants  of  the  establishment,  a 
position  remarkable  for  a  youth  of  nineteen. 

He  had  now  made  sufTficient  mark  as  a  missionary  to 
attract  the  attention  of  his  minister.  Dr.  Samuel  Dunn 
sent  for  him,  and  urged  him  to  ofYer  himself  for  the  ministry. 
William  Booth  hung  back.  He  says  he  shrank  from  the 
responsibility.  No  doubt  there  were  other  causes,  and  in 
all  likelihood  ambition  was  one  of  the  reasons  for.  his  refusal. 
I  do  not  mean  that  he  found  it  difficult  to  sacrifice  any 
lingering  ambition  for  worldly  success,  but  rather  that  he 
had  so  accustomed  himself,  "  with  a  long  persistency  of 
purpose,"  to  shouldering"  the  responsibilities  of  his  domestic 
position  that  no  idea  of  the  ministry  had  ever  presented 


vij  OBEDIENCE  TO  AUTHORITY  89 

itself  to  his  imagination.  He  had  his  living  to  get;  his 
mother  was  struggling  with  poverty;  the  responsibility  of 
j)rovicling  for  his  mother  and  sisters  had  been  present  in  his 
mind,  like  a  torture,  since  his  thirteenth  year.  Therefore, 
when  the  Superintendent  of  the  Circuit  suggested  to  the 
youth  that  he  should  become  a  minister  of  the  Wesleyan 
Church,  the  thought  was  so  foreign  to  the  drift  of  his  pur- 
pose that  he  could  do  nothing  but  refuse.  He  was  asked 
for  an  excuse.  He  pleaded  ill  health.  The  minister,  not 
to  be  baffled,  sent  him  to  a  doctor.  The  doctor  justified 
the  excuse.  He  declared  that  if  the  young  man  attempted 
the  life  of  a  minister  he  would  be  done  for  in  twelve  months. 
"  I  remember  him  saying,"  relates  William  Booth,  "  that 
unless  a  man  with  a  nervous  system  like  mine  was  framed 
like  a  brute,  and  had  a  chest  like  a  prize-fighter,  he  would 
break  down." 

So  the  lad  continued  the  daily  round  of  his  former 
life.  He  was  a  local  preacher,  and  went  far  afield  to  preach 
the  gospel  of  conversion.  He  worked  from  early  morning 
until  late  in  the  evening  to  earn  a  pitiful  wage.  He  had  no 
thought  in  his  mind,  no  other  purpose  before  his  eyes,  but 
to  work  for  his  mother  and  sisters,  and  use  every  hour  of 
his  leisure  as  a  layman  in  the  service  of  Christ. 

His  eldest  sister,  Ann  Booth,  married  one  of  his  school- 
fellows, then  a  well-off  business  man,  and  went  to  live  in 
London.  Mrs.  Booth  and  the  two  other  sisters  remained 
in  the  smallware  shop,  working  industriously  to  keep  a  roof 
over  their  heads.  The  son  William,  with  the  six  years  of 
his  apprenticeship  drawing  to  a  close,  began  to  look  about 
him  for  a  fresh  start  in  life. 

The  position  of  the  family  at  this  period  was  the  position 
of  William  Booth  —  a  hard  and  deadly  struggle  to  exist. 
The  golden  dreams  of  Samuel  Booth  had  vanished.  The 
former  comforts  and  respectabilities  of  the  household  had 
disappeared.  Definitely  and  decisively,  it  seemed,  this 
little  circle  of  humanity  had  sunk  into  a  dark  obscurity 
from  which  it  was  impossible  that  they  should  ever  emerge. 
Only  in  the  son  did  the  determination  to  be  "  something 
great "  persist ;  and  the  widow  and  her  daughters  saw  with 
something  like  despair  this  last  hope  of  their  lives  wasting 


90  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH    [chap.vi] 

his  strength  and  consuming  his  most  precious  time  in  a 
quixotic  effort  to  convert  the  disreputable  mob  of  Notting- 
ham to  the  religion  of  Christianity. 

And  to  William  Booth  himself  it  seemed  at  last  that  he 
was  losing  time  and  squandering  opportunities.  He  saw 
nothing  in  Nottingham  that  offered  him  any  hope. 

At  nineteen  the  weary  years  of  my  apprenticeship  came  to 
an  end.  I  had  done  my  six  years'  service,  and  was  heartily  glad 
to  be  free  from  the  bitter  and  humiliating  bondage  they  had 
proved.  But  I  was  still  under  the  necessity  to  work,  and  a 
situation  had  to  be  sought.  I  tried  hard  to  find  some  kind  of 
labour  that  would  give  me  more  liberty  to  carry  out  my  aggres- 
sive ideas  in  the  way  of  saving  the  lost,  but  failed.  For  twelve 
months  I  waited.  Those  months  were  amongst  the  most  deso- 
late of  my  life.  You  may  say,  Where  was  the  Church  to  which 
I  belonged?  Where  were  its  rich  business  members  who  might 
surely  have  found  employment  for  one  who  was  already  giving 
promise  of  a  useful  life?  Yes:  well,  it  was  the  question  we 
asked.     For  no  one  took  the  slightest  interest  in  me. 

Twelve  desolate  months  in  the  life  of  a  very  exceptional 
youth,  twelve  desolate  months  at  the  threshold  of  his  man- 
hood; and  at  the  end  of  them,  nothing.  It  was  in  those 
twelve  months  that  his  mother  and  sisters  came  nearer  to 
him ;  he  was  cast  down,  dejected,  humiliated,  and  almost 
crushed;  it  was  impossible  for  them  to  look  upon  this 
tragedy  of  romantic  youth  unmoved.  For  there  was 
William  Booth  hunting  the  streets  of  prosperous  Notting- 
ham for  honourable  employment,  working  by  night  in  the 
slums,  giving  himself  on  Sunday  to  the  work  of  the  Chapel, 
seeking  sinners,  praying  in  cottages,  visiting  the  sick  and 
dying,  reading  Finney's  Sermons  and  Lectures,  studying 
the  works  of  Whitefield  and  Wesley,  protesting  his  faith  at 
home  that  God  would  surely  provide  for  him  —  and  at  the 
end  of  twelve  months  not  a  door  had  opened. 

"  I  had  to  move  away,"  he  says;  and,  like  many  another 
adventurer  with  empty  pockets  and  a  fighting  spirit,  he  set 
his  face  towards  London, 


CHAPTER  VII 

LONDON  ;    THE    EARLY    VICTORIANS 
1849 

London  was  full  of  great  men  and  concerned  with  many 
matters  of  high  importance,  when  William  Booth  arrived 
with  his  Bible  during  the  autumn  of  the  year  1849.  This 
work-seeking  youth,  almost  friendless  and  penniless  in  the 
multitudinous  city,  was  presented  with  no  immediate 
opportunity  for  setting  the  Thames  on  fire,  could  indeed 
see  nowhere  any  provision  made  by  which  he  might  even 
earn  bread  enough  to  keep  his  soul  in  his  body.  If  Notting- 
ham could  cheerfully  do  without  him,  London  was  certainly 
able  to  keep  its  anvil  ringing  with  no  help  from  his  arm. 

The  times  were  serious  enough.  Palmerston,  declaiming 
the  false  gospel  of  a  bullying  patriotism,  was  dragging  the 
nation  to  the  edge  of  war  with  France,  and  perhaps  Russia, 
over  the  matter  of  a  Portuguese  Jew  in  Athens;  Newman 
—  with  a  brilliance  and  charm  of  style  surpassed  only  by 
his  indifference  to  history  and  science  —  was  urging  the 
Anglican  Church  of  England  towards  a  path  which  led 
backward  and  not  forward;  Carlyle  was  thundering  his 
gospel  of  moral  earnestness  to  an  age  which  had  lost  respect 
for  authority  and  was  mindful  only  of  commercial  earnest- 
ness; the  ruinous  condition  of  Ireland  had  brought  into 
existence  the  deadliest  of  all  social  evils  —  secret  societies 
and  bands  of  conspirators  who  sought  to  gain  their  ends 
by  physical  violence ;  and  deep  down  among  the  dim  and 
squalid  millions  of  industrial  England,  the  ignorant, 
degraded,  overburdened,  socially  despised  and  politically 
neglected  wealth-getters  of  this  troubled  England,  there  was 
unrest  deeper  than  ocean  and  fiercer  than  flame. 

It  was  an  age  in  which  only  science  held  a  taper  into 
universal  darkness.  Everywhere  else  that  one  looked  this 
darkness  reigned  and  deepened.     It  reigned  and  deepened 

91 


92  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

over  religion,  which  had  lost  the  creative  sense  of  joy, 
which  was  more  concerned  with  words  than  life,  and  was 
here  surrendering  to  the  tyranny  of  tradition  and  there 
donning  the  vesture  of  the  ethical  philosopher.  It  reigned 
and  deepened  over  the  great  art  of  architecture  which  had 
played  the  traitor  to  beauty  and  sold  itself  with  both  hands 
to  utility  and  vulgar  ignorance.  It  reigned  and  deepened 
over  the  whole  field  of  politics  which  was  saturated  with 
corruption  and  surrounded  on  every  side  by  the  barriers 
of  privilege.  It  reigned  and  deepened  over  the  immense 
region  of  industry,  where  men  who  made  a  profession  of 
religion,  side  by  side  with  those  who  more  honestly  rejected 
religion,  brutalized  and  destroyed  their  fellow-creatures, 
using  up  even  the  lives  of  children,  in  galloping  efforts  to 
lay  up  treasures  upon  earth.  It  reigned  and  deepened  over 
the  arts  of  the  painter  and  musician,  where  a  contemptible 
ideal  of  prettiness  usurped  the  appeal  of  truth,  beauty,  and 
righteous  passion.  It  reigned,  too,  even  in  the  kingdom 
of  literature  where  the  revolt  of  Shelley,  the  mournful  and 
despairing  classicism  of  Keats,  had  yielded  room  to  a  con- 
ventional and  ignoble  propriety  oblivious  of  beauty  and 
fatal  to  truth.  It  reigned  and  deepened,  too,  over  the  entire 
field  of  national  production  and  national  life  —  visible  in 
the  ugliness  of  domestic  furniture,  in  the  frightful  mon- 
strosities of  national  monuments,  in  the  painful  conventions 
of  respectable  society,  and  in  the  appalling  ignorance,  des- 
titution, and  degradation  of  the  masses. 

One  looks  in  vain,  even  from  the  giants  of  that  age,  for 
any  recognition  of  this  universal  darkness.  From  the  first 
page  of  his  Apologia  to  the  last  Newman  is  concerned  with 
a  reconstruction  of  traditionalism,  and  says  not  a  single 
word  either  about  the  progress  of  science  or  the  ignorance 
and  suffering  of  the  common  people.  Macaulay,  who 
retired  into  private  life  at  this  time,  and  had  just  published 
the  first  volumes  of  his  auriferous  history,  never  wrote  one 
word  which  was  in  the  nature  of  an  alarum;  "  he  did  little," 
says  Morley,  "  to  make  men  better  fitted  to  face  a  present 
of  which,  close  as  it  was  to  him,  he  seems  hardly  to  have 
dreamed."  Tennyson  began  in  a  mild  and  picturesque 
manner  to  suggest  the  need  for  social  reformation,  but  he 


vii]        LONDON:  THE  EARLY  VICTORIANS        93 

never  wore  the  mantle  of  Shelley,  and  he  ended  as  an  honest 
obscurantist.  Thackeray  contented  himself  by  sneering  at 
the  foibles  of  a  very  few  rich  and  vulgar  people.  Dickens, 
when  he  became  a  reformer,  struck  his  hardest  blows  at 
religious  hypocrisy,  and  ranged  himself  on  the  side  of  a 
port-wine  philanthropy,  which,  if  it  excelled  the  Bumbledom 
of  his  times,  was  nevertheless  absolutely  destructive  of  self- 
respect.  Gladstone  opposed  the  Factory  Acts.  Shaftes- 
bury cried  out  that  he  got  no  help  from  religious  people  in 
his  great  work  for  the  humanization  of  industry.  Carlyle, 
with  his  gospel  of  moral  earnestness,  approached  nearer, 
perhaps,  than  any  other  recognized  great  man  of  the  times 
to  the  real  danger  of  society,  but  he  cried  loudest  for  those 
very  qualities  and  energies  of  the  English  character  which 
were  then  most  actively  in  existence  and  most  con- 
spicuous in  stimulating  an  unsocial  individualism.  For  the 
rest,  the  middle  classes  were  committed  to  the  gospel  of 
energy,  not  to  the  gospel  of  intelligence ;  they  were  hot  in 
pursuit  of  riches,  perfectly  self-satisfied,  and  only  passionate 
when  a  murmur  of  discontent  or  any  rumbling  of  threat- 
ening storm  came  to  them  in  their  comfortable  parlours 
from  the  disreputable  under-world  of  poverty  and  sin. 

They  liked  to  read  (says  Stopford  Brooke)  about  pain  and 
trouble  in  the  past ;  they  hated  to  read  about  it  in  the  present. 
When  suffering  was  known  to  be  over,  and  made  no  claim  on 
them  —  to  read  of  it  gave  a  pleasant  flavour  to  their  luxury  and 
to  their  degraded  peace.  Therefore  they  accepted  with  a  barren 
gratitude  Mrs.  Hemans,  Letitia  Elizabeth  Landon,  and  others 
who  wrote  graceful,  pathetic,  perfumed  stories,  and  pretty 
lyrics  about  spring  and  love  and  sorrow,  and  little  deeds  of 
valour,  and  such  religion  as  their  society  could  accept;  religion 
which  promised  them  in  heaven  a  pleasant  extension  of  their 
agreeable  life  on  earth. 

Men  like  Maurice  and  Kingsley  were  at  work  with  new 
ideas  for  politics  and  religion ;  Ruskin  was  there,  and 
Matthew  Arnold  was  coming,  with  broader  and  truer  notions 
of  philosophy  and  art ;  George  Eliot  had  a  message  for  those 
who  needed  none ;  John  Stuart  Mill  was  laying  the  foun- 
dations of  a  more  reasonable  political  economy ;  Cobden  and 
Bright  were    fast  preparing   the    way    for   a    fresher   and 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

kinder  outlook  on  the  nations  of  the  world ;  but  the  general 
condition  of  the  English  people  was  one  of  frank  materialism 
and  aggressive  complacency,  a  condition  in  which  the 
"  obese  platitudes  "of  respectability  were  accepted  as  the 
highest  wisdom  and  the  unspeakable  miseries  of  the  poor 
were  regarded  as  the  judgments  of  God  or  the  inevitable 
fruits  of  political  economy. 

It  is  difficult  for  a  modern  mind  to  conceive  truly  of 
the  England  of  that  period.  Humanitarianism,  which  has 
become  with  us,  if  not  a  passion  and  a  religion,  at  least 
good  manners,  was  then  regarded  as  the  misguided  hobby 
of  a  few  fussy  and  mischief-making  philanthropists  who 
turned  their  backs  on  the  stables  of  Augeas  to  plant  mustard 
and  cress  on  the  banks  of  the  cleansing  rivers.  Little 
concern  was  shown  by  the  churches  or  the  chapels  for  the 
bodies  of  men.  No  shame  was  felt  for  such  a  term  as 
"  Ragged  Schools."  There  was  no  system  of  national 
education,  factory  legislation  permitted  children  to  work 
for  ten  hours  a  day,  there  was  no  real  inspection  of  these 
insanitary  places,  no  idea  of  housing  reform,  no  provision 
for  poverty  but  the  execrable  Poor-House.  Few  agencies 
existed  for  ministering  to  the  physical  needs  of  the  poor, 
the  mental  needs  of  the  uneducated,  the  spiritual  needs 
of  the  sunken  masses,  the  most  elemental  natural  needs 
of  perishing  children.  Politics  had  not  even  glanced  at 
domestic  legislation ;  the  phrase  social  conscience  had  not 
been  invented ;  men  were  satisfied  with,  accepted  as  a  God- 
ordained  system  of  human  government,  a  state  of  indi- 
vidualism which  trod  millions  underfoot  for  the  enrichment 
of  tens.  Such  a  phrase  as  "  Tory  Democracy  "  would  have 
had  no  meaning  for  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  little  meaning, 
if  any,  for  the  Gladstone  of  that  day.  Nearly  every  sug- 
gestion for  bettering  the  condition  of  the  poor  was  regarded 
as  blasphemous  republicanism  and  treated  with  a  wrathful 
disdain.  Tory  and  Whig  desired  office  for  the  sake  of 
patronage,  and  there  was  no  difference  in  the  blindness  of 
the  one  and  the  other,  no  difference  in  the  deadness  of  their 
imaginations  to  the  evils  of  the  time.  Religion,  politics, 
art,  even  literature,  struck  no  blow  for  justice  and  advance. 
One  spirit  was  at  work  destined  to  exert  an  influence 


VII]        LONDON:  THE  EARLY  VICTORIANS        95 

on  the  world  more  far-reaching,  and  more  revolutionary, 
than  any  which  had  preceded  it;  a  spirit  which  has  now 
overspread  the  whole  world  and  still  shows  no  sign  of  abat- 
ing its  force ;  a  spirit  which  is  at  once  responsible  for  in- 
finite misery  and  yet  carries  with  it  almost  the  chief  hope 
left  to  humanity  —  the  spirit  of  mechanical  science,  the 
spirit  of  practical  science  applied  to  the  physical  needs  of 
human  life. 

At  the  time  when  William  Booth  came  to  London 
railways  were  in  their  infancy,  and  the  greatest  achieve- 
ment of  manufacturing  science  was  the  spinning  jenny. 
But  a  new  door  had  been  opened  on  existence.  The  prom- 
ise of  riches  offered  by  this  new  field  to  ambitious  men  had 
thrown  the  whole  weight  of  human  intelligence  on  the  side 
of  science ;  nor  did  it  need  any  impulse  from  the  thesis 
of  Darwin  to  urge  men  forward  on  this  fresh  trail  to  the 
ancient  goal  of  material  welfare.  Little  was  now  to  be 
left  to  Providence,  less  and  less  as  time  went  on;  men  took 
their  own  lives  in  their  hands  and  pressed  forward  on  the 
road  of  discovery,  seeking  everywhere  for  light  on  their 
path,  too  eager  for  the  prize  to  heed  voices  so  distant  and 
so  faint  as  the  voices  of  faith  and  tradition. 

It  was  a  new  world  for  the  human  race ;  and  ancient 
precedents  lost  their  authority  when  the  frontier  was  crossed. 
Mechanical  science  is  not  so  much  an  enemy  to  religion  as 
a  rival.  Men  not  only  give  their  lives  but  lose  their  hearts 
to  this  lavish  employer  of  their  brains.  A  Greek  counted 
himself  abased  if  he  permitted  his  knowledge  of  science  to 
be  applied  to  trade ;  the  English  only  reverence  science  when 
it  serves  a  physical  purpose.  And  the  modern  English- 
man, surrounded  on  every  side  by  the  multitude  of  fast 
multiplying  contrivances  of  physical  science,  finds  it  difficult 
to  believe  that  it  is  not  along  this  path  of  increasing  wonder 
and  more  magic  discovery  that  the  generations  of  men 
are  destined  to  travel  on  the  way  from  the  darkness  of 
Ignorance  to  the  light  of  Knowledge.  From  the  me- 
chanical toy  to  the  bicycle,  and  from  the  bicycle  to  the  dy- 
namo driving  light  and  power  over  hundreds  of  miles, 
science  offers  so  potent  and  possessing  a  fascination  to  the 
question-asking  mind  of  humanity,  so  constant  and  increas- 


96  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

ing  an  occupation  for  faculties  that  clamour  to  be  used,  so 
many  and  so  great  services  to  a  physically  enfeebled  genera- 
tion, that  the  human  race,  weary  of  exertion,  sceptical  of  tra- 
dition, dulled  and  exhausted  by  uninteresting  toil,  and 
eager  for  amusement,  sets  here  its  affections  and  gives  here 
its  loyalty  and  reverence. 

Stronger  than  all  the  other  adversaries  in  the  path  of 
William  Booth  when  he  arrived  in  London  was  this  spirit 
of  physical  science,  then  beginning  to  diffuse  itself  over 
the  nation.  And  as  we  shall  presently  find,  it  was  a  spirit 
whose  value  he  failed  to  see  and  whose  danger  he  rather 
despised  than  attacked.  Not  greatly  concerned  with 
Nature,  and  perhaps  even  less  with  literature  and  art, 
William  Booth  resolutely  turned  his  back  upon  science,  and, 
like  St.  Paul,  'determined  to  know  nothing  but  Christ,  and 
Him  crucified.  He  came  to  London  with  the  Bible,  and 
from  London  he  carried  that  Bible  throughout  the  world. 

li  any  man  is  tempted  on  this  account  to  regard  him 
only  as  a  narrow  and  an  intolerant  Hebraist,  let  it  be 
remembered  that  with  no  mean  courage  and  after  no 
inglorious  battle  did  he  keep  his  Bible  in  the  streets  of 
London  and  carry  it  to  a  world-wide  victory. 

He  arrived  in  London  as  a  seeker  of  work,  the  son  of 
a  poor  and  struggling  mother  in  the  provinces,  with  no 
influence,  with  no  money,  and  with  no  friends.  And  at 
the  very  outset  of  this  new  adventure  in  his  wayfaring  he 
was  met  by  one  of  those  tragic  disappointments  of  faith 
and  affection  which  deject  the  courage  of  the  bravest  and 
embitter  the  feelings  of  the  kindest. 

In  the  notes  made  for  his  autobiogtaphy  he  set  down 
under  the  title  of  "  London  "  the  one  word  "  Loneliness !  " 
This  word  stood  for  infinitely  more  than  that  sensation 
of  solitude  and  depression  which  overwhelms  a  man  in 
coming  for  the  first  time  under  the  cold  skies  and  into  the 
unfriendly  roar  of  a  vast  city  utterly  indifferent  to  his 
existence.  It  stood,  too,  for  something  even  more  than 
what  he  calls  "  that  sickening  impression  "  produced  in  the 
mind  of  "a  young  enthusiast  for  Christ"  by  the  manifest 
iniquities  and  thousandfold  degradations  of  a  godless 
multitude.     It  stood  for  tragedy  and  bitter  grief. 


vn]        LONDON:  THE  EARLY  VICTORIANS        97 

There  was  only  one  house  in  London  to  which  he  could 
go,  the  house  of  his  eldest  sister,  the  beautiful  Ann  who 
had  been  an  influence  for  good  on  his  boyhood,  and  who 
had  stood  by  his  side  in  the  streets  of  Nottingham  singing 
the  hymns  of  those  outdoor  services.  With  whatever  feel- 
ings he  went  to  the  house  of  his  beloved  sister,  he  was 
speedily  brought  face  to  face  with  disenchantment  and 
horror.  He  found  that  her  husband,  one  of  his  old  school- 
fellows, had  adopted  a  truculent  agnosticism,  was  a  loud- 
voiced  and  contemptuous  materialist,  a  man  who  heartily 
despised  religion,  and  regarded  every  species  of  piety  as 
so  much  cant  and  make-believe.  Moreover,  he  discovered 
that  this  disagreeable  person  had  contracted  the  disease  of 
alcoholism,  and  that  he  had  not  only  infected  his  sister  with 
his  odious  notions  concerning  religion,  but  also  with  the 
destroying  germ  of  his  horrible  vice.  Instead  of  welcome 
and  encouragement,  he  met  with  ridicule  and  contempt. 
His  sister  was  kind  enough  to  let  him  argue  and  plead 
with  her,  but  his  brother-in-law  had  not  patience  enough 
even  for  this  amenity.  He  was  coldly  treated,  contemptu- 
ously used,  and  speedily  dismissed.  Instead  of  a  happy 
and  restful  home,  he  found  a  household  overshadowed  by 
ruin  of  every  kind.  The  rich  brother-in-law,  swiftly  im- 
poverishing himself,  was  a  blacker  shadow  in  that  home 
than  the  struggling  and  speculating  Samuel  Booth  had  been 
in  the  darkening  home  of  Sneinton.  Signs  of  approaching 
trouble  were  everywhere  visible,  and  soon  both  husband  and 
wife,  in  spite  of  all  the  exertions  of  William  Booth,  passed 
from  prosperity  to  ruin  and  presently  from  ruin  to  death. 

This  painful  discovery  at  the  first  step  in  London  threw 
the  young  venturer  into  a  state  of  deep  dejection.  It 
deepened  to  ocean  depth  his  sensation  of  solitude,  and 
darkened  his  horizon  with  clouds  blacker  than  night.  He 
was  now  quite  friendless  and  homeless.  No  agency  existed 
to  which  he  could  go  for  assistance,  no  brotherhood  or 
society  where  he  could  count  upon  kindness  and  welcome. 
He  was  solitary  in  London,  solitary  and  poor,  with  nothing 
but  his  Bible  for  consolation.  And  it  was  necessary  for 
him  to  have  bread  that  he  might  live,  even  in  dejection  and 
poverty. 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH  [chap.vh] 

He  has  described  his  feehngs  at  this  time,  not  very  in- 
timately, and  perhaps  with  the  preacher  uppermost,  but  the 
words  afford  at  least  some  idea  of  the  difficulties  which  con- 
fronted him : 

The  sensations  of  a  new-comer  to  London  from  the  country 
are  always  somewhat  disagreeable,  if  he  comes  to  work.  The 
immensity  of  the  city  must  especially  strike  him  as  he  crosses  it 
for  the  first  time  and  passes  through  its  different  areas.  The 
general  turn-out  into  a  few  great  thoroughfares,  on  Saturday 
nights  especially,  gives  a  sensation  of  enormous  bulk.  The 
manifest  poverty  of  so  many  in  the  most  populous  streets  must 
appeal  to  any  heart.  The  language  of  the  drinking  crowds 
must  needs  give  a  rather  worse  than  true  impression  of  all. 

The  crowding  pressure  and  activity  of  so  many  must  always 
oppress  one  not  accustomed  to  it.  The  number  of  public  houses, 
theatres,  and  music-halls  must  give  a  young  enthusiast  for 
Christ  a  sickening  impression.  The  enormous  numbers  of 
hawkers  must  also  have  given  a  rather  exaggerated  idea  of 
the  poverty  and  cupidity  which  nevertheless  prevailed.  The 
Churches  in  those  days  gave  the  very  uttermost  idea  of  spiritual 
death  and  blindness  to  the  existing  condition  of  things ;  at  that 
time  very  few  of  them  were  open  more  than  one  evening  per 
week.  There  were  no  Young  Men's  or  Young  Women's  Chris- 
tian Associations,  no  Pleasant  Sunday  Afternoons,  no  Brother- 
hoods, no  Central  Missions,  no  extra  effort  to  attract  the  atten- 
tion of  the  godless  crowds.  .  .  . 

To  any  who  cared  to  enter  the  places  of  worship,  their 
deathly  contrast  with  the  streets  was  even  worse.  The  absence 
of  week-night  services  must  have  made  any  strangers  despair  of 
finding  even  society  or  diversion.  A  Methodist  sufficiently  in 
earnest  to  get  inside  to  the  "  class  "  would  find  a  handful  of 
people  reluctant  to  bear  any  witness  to  the  power  of  God. 

One  is  tempted  to  ask  whether  any  young  enthusiast  for 
Christ  ever  stood  before  a  door  so  fastened  and  close-barred 
as  that  which  confronted  William  Booth  at  his  first  en- 
trance into  London.  Certainly  to  few  men  has  the  future 
presented  itself  with  a  more  hopeless  promise,  a  more 
deadly  indifference,  than  it  did  at  this  fateful  juncture  to 
this  young  enthusiast  from  Nottingham,  li  ever  he 
prayed  earnestly  for  light  and  guidance  surely  must  it  have 
been  at  this  period,  when  he  stood  friendless,  all  but  penni- 
less, and  with  a  wounded  heart  in  the  streets  of  London. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    CALL   TO    PREACH 
1849 

Among  the  disappointments  which  met  our  young  venturer 
in  London  was  the  impossibihty  of  getting  work  outside  the 
pawnbrokery  business.  He  had  come  now  to  dislike  the 
business.  He  was  as  yet  by  no  means  anhungered  and 
athirst  to  be  free  of  secular  labour  that  he  might  preach  the 
Gospel  of  Christ ;  at  this  time  he  had  seen  nothing  of 
London's  destitution,  nothing  of  those  black  depths  where 
multitudes  of  human  beings  perish  in  darkness  and  sin; 
his  experience  of  London  was  largely  the  experience  of 
respectable  and  suburban  London ;  and  with  this  first  im- 
pression in  his  mind  —  he  was  twenty  years  of  age  —  his 
idea  was  to  preach  on  Sunday  and  work  for  his  living  dur- 
ing the  week-day,  pushing  his  fortunes  with  all  his  might, 
for  the  sake  of  his  mother  and  sister,  as  well  as  for  himself. 
But  there  was  no  work  for  him  except  his  old  work,  and 
accordingly  into  a  pawnbroker's  shop  in  Walworth  he  went 
to  earn  his  living.  A  new  experience  in  religion  awaited 
him  here : 

My  new  master  very  closely  resembled  the  old  one  in  many 
respects.  In  one  particular  he  differed  from  him  very  materi- 
ally, and  that  was,  he  made  a  great  profession  of  religion.  The 
first  master  was  a  Unitarian,  knowing  nothing  about  even  the 
theory  of  godliness.  I  never  remember  him  uttering  a  sentence 
that  showed  that  he  had  any  saving  faith  in  God  or  any  sym- 
pathy with  godly  people  during  the  whole  six  years  I  was  with 
him.  My  second  master  believed  in  the  Divinity  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  in  the  Church  of  which  he  was  a  member,  but 
seemed  to  be  utterly  ignorant  of  either  the  theory  or  practice 
of  experimental  godliness,  and  as  to  the  spiritual  interests  of 
the  dead  world  around  him,  he  was  as  indifferent  to  their  future 
well-being  as  were  the  vicious  crowds  themselves  whom  he  so 
heartily  despised.  All  he  seemed,  to  me,  to  want  was  to  make 
money,  and  all  he  seemed  to  want  me  for  was  to  help  him  in 
the  sordid,  selfish  task.     So  it  was  work,  work,  work,  morning, 

99 


lOO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

noon,  and  night.  I  was  practically  a  white  slave,  being  only 
allowed  my  liberty  on  the  Sabbath,  and  an  hour  or  two  one 
night  a  week,  and  then  the  rule  was,  home  by  ten  o'clock,  or 
the  door  will  be  locked  against  you.  This  law  was  rigidly  en- 
forced in  my  case,  although  he  knew  that  I  travelled  long  dis- 
tances preaching  the  Gospel,  in  which  he  and  his  sanctimonious 
wife  professed  to  believe.  To  get  home  in  time,  many  a  Sun- 
day night  I  have  had  to  run  till  out  of  breath,  after  walking 
long  distances,  and  preaching  twice  in  the  day. 

Some  men  might  easily  have  been  disgusted  with  religion 
in  such  a  circumstance  as  this,  particularly  a  young  man 
whose  heart  was  sore  with  disappointment  and  weighted 
with  the  difficulties  which  confronted  him;  but  William 
Booth  never  lost  by  encountering  hypocrisy;  he  gained 
by  it;  he  never  made  the  hypocrisy  of  others  an  excuse  for 
relaxing  his  efforts,  rather  was  he  braced  by  it  to  show  the 
true  face  of  religion  to  mankind.  In  an  age  when  there 
was  almost  a  vogue  of  this  odious  religious  hypocrisy,  an 
hypocrisy  so  general  that  Dickens  in  his  struggle  to  extir- 
pate it  f^ung  himself  into  the  fight  with  an  impatient  ex- 
aggeration which  delighted  the  base  and  confirmed  the 
feeble  in  their  feebleness  —  in  this  age  of  deception  and 
self-deception,  of  formalism,  cant,  smoothness,  and  de- 
testable complacency,  William  Booth  looked  the  distorted 
falsity  in  the  face  and  saw  only  the  beauty  and  glory  of 
the  reality.  He  deepened  his  own  intense  consciousness  of 
religion  by  contact  with  the  shallow  pretence  of  a  merely 
formal  and  professed  religion.  The  less  of  truth  he  saw 
in  others,  the  more  hungrily  he  desired  it  in  himself.  To 
abandon  religion,  because  of  false  religion  in  others,  never 
so  much  as  entered  his  mind. 

But  there  were  difficulties  in  his  path : 

My  way  was  complicated,  but  I  stuck  to  my  faith  and  the 
preaching  of  it  as  far  as  I  had  the  opportunity.  It  is  true  that 
here  and  there  I  made  friends  in  my  preaching  excursions  with 
whom  I  fraternized,  as  far  as  my  little  leisure  afforded,  enjoying 
occasional  seasons  of  useful  communion.  But  my  poor  heart 
was  desolate  in  the  extreme.  It  seemed  as  though  I  had  got 
launched  out  on  a  wide  and  dreary  ocean  without  a  companion 
vessel  or  a  friendly  port  in  view. 

Something  of  his  state  of  mind  at  this  period  may  be 


vm]  THE  CALL  TO  PREACH  loi 

gathered  from  a  worn  and  faded  document  found  among 
his  papers  after  death,  the  pathetic  and  honest  confession 
of  a  young  soul  conscious  of  its  weakness  and  seeking 
strength  from  a  solemn  and  secret  protestation  of  faith. 
This  little  paper  bears  the  date  December  6,  1849,  ^^^  Pro- 
ceeds in  this  manner: 

RESOLUTIONS 

I  do  promise  —  my  God  helping  — 

1st  That  I  will  rise  every  morning  sufficiently  early  (say 
20  minutes  before  seven  o'clock)  to  wash,  dress,  and  have  a  few 
minutes,  not  less  than  5,  in  private  prayer. 

2ndy  That  I  will  as  much  as  possible  avoid  all  that  babbling 
and  idle  talking  in  which  I  have  lately  so  sinfully  indulged. 

3rd  That  I  will  endeavour  in  my  conduct  and  deportment 
before  the  world  and  my  fellow  servants  especially  to  conduct 
myself  as  a  humble,  meek,  and  zealous  follower  of  the  bleeding 
Lamb,  and  by  serious  conversion  and  warning  endeavour  to 
lead  them  to  think  of  their  immortal  souls. 

4thly  That  I  will  not  read  less  than  4  chapters  in  God's  word 
every  day. 

5thly  That  I  will  strive  to  live  closer  to  God,  and  to  seek 
after  holiness  of  heart,  and  leave  providential  events  with  God. 

6thly  That  I  will  read  this  over  every  day  or  at  least  twice 
a  week. 

God  help  me,  enable  me  to  cultivate  a  spirit  of  self  denial 
and  to  yield  myself  a  prisoner  of  love  to  the  Redeemer  of  the 
world. 

Amen  &  Amen 

William  Booth. 

I  feel  my  own  weakness  and  without  God's  help  I  shall  not 
keep  these  resolutions  a  day.  The  Lord  have  mercy  upon  my 
guilty  soul. 

I  claim  the  Blood 
Yes,  oh  Yes, 

Jesus  died  for  me. 

Faithfully  he  performed  the  duties  entrusted  to  him, 
making  himself  not  merely  useful  but  almost  invaluable  to 
his  slave-driving  master,  for  into  everything  they  do  it  is 
the  nature  of  such  men  as  this  to  put  the  whole  force  of 
their  powers;  but  it  was  only  when  he  was  free  from  the 
shop  and  out  in  the  streets  of  London  on  his  business  of 
preaching  religion  that  he  really  lived,  and  really  hoped. 
Weak  and  delicate  as  he  was,  hard  and  exhausting  as  was 


102  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

his  daily  work,  he  gave  himself  up  on  Sundays  and  his  one 
spare  week-night  to  such  preaching  in  the  London  chapels 
he  visited  as  startled  and  shocked  the  polite  congregations 
with  the  strength  and  fire  of  its  rugged  energy.  And  when 
the  preaching  was  over,  and  he  had  fraternized  for  a  few 
moments  with  the  few  who  shared  his  enthusiasm,  the 
Nottingham  lad  would  take  to  his  heels  and  run  through 
the  lamp-lighted  streets  of  the  suburbs  back  to  the  attic- 
bed  above  the  shop  in  Walworth. 

The  more  he  saw  of  London  the  more  insistent  became 
this  desire  to  preach  the  religion  of  Christ.  So  far  as  one 
can  see,  it  was  during  these  first  months  in  Walworth  that 
the  suggestion  made  to  him  in  Nottingham  a  year  before 
by  Samuel  Dunn  came  home  to  his  mind  as  a  real  and 
definite  idea.  The  spectacle  of  the  London  streets,  thronged 
at  night  by  crowds  of  people  who  often  appeared  before  his 
vision  as  godless  and  vicious  and  perishing,  worked  upon 
his  imagination  and  quickened  the  idea  that  he  should 
preach  Christ,  whatever  might  be  the  consequences  to  his 
earthly  fortunes. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  great  temperance 
movement  had  not  struck  root  at  this  period,  and  that  the 
sights  of  London  streets,  particularly  in  the  poorer  quar- 
ters, were  infinitely  worse  than  they  are  now.  Drunken- 
ness was  not  only  horribly  common,  it  was  every  one's 
opportunity  for  hilarity.  It  provided  the  humorous  inci- 
dents of  transpontine  melodrama  in  the  theatres,  and  the 
only  break  of  cheerful  comedy  in  the  sordid  tragedy  of  the 
streets.  Women  might  be  breaking  their  hearts  at  home, 
children  might  be  crying  pitifully  for  food  and  clothing, 
but  the  sight  of  uproarious  men  rolling  and  lurching  home 
from  the  ale-house  seldom  aroused  anything  but  amuse- 
ment in  those  who  turned  the  head  to  look  after  them. 

And,  again,  there  was  no  Education  Act.  The  worst  of 
the  narrow,  grimy  streets  of  London  were  thronged  with 
ragged,  barefooted,  unwashed,  foul-mouthed,  and  in  many 
cases  criminally-minded  children,  to  save  whom  neither  the 
State  nor  religion  made  scarcely  an  efifort.  The  parents 
of  these  children  were  either  the  idle  rascals  of  street- 
corners,  or  the  sweated  and  exhausted  victims  of  a  con- 


VIII]  THE  CALL  TO  PREACH  103 

scienceless  commercialism.  A  man  could  go  but  a  little 
distance  in  London  without  encountering  such  men  and 
women,  and  such  helpless  little  children,  as  seem  degraded 
out  of  the  likeness  to  humanity. 

To  William  Booth  the  call  to  preach  Christ  came  in  these 
London  streets,  not  dramatically  and  suddenly,  but  with  a 
steady  and  persisting  tone  of  resolute  command.  He  could 
not  doubt  the  reality  of  that  call,  and  his  faith  would  not 
let  him  disobey  it. 

He  has  left  a  record  of  his  feelings  on  this  matter,  writ- 
ten before  he  had  really  looked  into  the  Stygian  depths  of 
the  London  abyss,  and  from  this  record  one  may  discern 
how  his  mind  was  acted  upon  in  youth  by  the  sights  he  saw 
in  suburbs  that  passed  in  those  days  for  respectable : 

How  can  anybody  with  spiritual  eyesight  talk  of  having  no 
call,  when  there  are  such  multitudes  around  them  who  never 
hear  a  word  of  God,  and  never  intend  to ;  who  can  never 
hear,  indeed,  without  the  sort  of  preacher  who  will  force  him- 
self upon  them?  Can  a  man  keep  right  in  his  own  soul  who 
can  see  all  that,  and  yet  stand  waiting  for  a  "  call "  to  preach? 
Would  they  wait  so  for  a  "  call "  to  help  anyone  to  escape  from 
a  burning  building,  or  to  snatch  a  sinking  child  from  a  watery 
grave  ? 

Does  not  growth  in  grace,  or  even  ordinary  growth  of  intelli- 
gence, necessarily  bring  with  it  that  deepened  sense  of  eternal 
truths  which  must  intensify  the  conviction  of  duty  to  the  perish- 
ing world  ? 

Does  not  an  unselfish  love,  the  love  that  goes  out  towards 
the  unloving,  demand  of  a  truly  loving  soul  immediate  action 
for  the  salvation  of  the  unloved? 

And  are  there  not  persons  who  know  that  they  possess 
special  gifts,  such  as  robust  health,  natural  eloquence,  or  power 
of  voice,  which  specially  make  them  responsible  for  doing  some- 
thing for  souls? 

And  yet  I  do  not  at  all  forget,  that  above  and  beyond  all 
these  things,  there  does  come  to  some  a  special  and  direct  call, 
which  it  is  peculiarly  fatal  to  disregard,  and  peculiarly  strength- 
ening to  enjoy  and  act  upon. 

I  believe  that  there  have  been  many  eminently  holy  and 
useful  men  who  never  had  such  a  call ;  but  that  does  not  at  all 
prevent  anyone  from  asking  God  for  it,  or  blessing  Him  for 
His  special  kindness  when  lie  gives  it. 

The  call,  at  any  rate,  had  come  for  him.  It  was  a  call 
from  Heaven,  and  from  humanity  as  well. 


CHAPTER  IX 

A    CRISIS    IN    METHODISM 
1850 

In  the  year  1848  dissatisfaction  with  the  government  of 
Wesleyan  Methodism  had  gathered  considerable  force. 
Men  felt  that  the  Wesleyan  Conference  did  not  fairly 
represent  the  churches,  that  this  Conference  exercised  un- 
justly a  tyrannous  despotism  over  local  churches  in  the 
connection,  and  that  salvation  lay  in  a  democratic  extension 
of  local  government  throughout  the  whole  field  of  Wes- 
leyan Methodism.  "  The  real  question  at  stake  was ; 
Connexionalism  or  Congregationalism  —  the  supremacy  of 
the  Conference  as  the  final  court  of  appeal,  or  of  the  court 
of  the  individual  church."  Certain  Fly  Sheets  had  been 
freely  circulated  among  Methodists  expressing  not  merely 
dissatisfaction  with  Dr.  Jabez  Bunting,  who  was  President 
of  the  Theological  Institution,  but  expressing  a  very  violent 
antagonism  to  the  Conference,  which  was  likened  to  a  Papal 
despotism.  These  anonymous  and  virulent  pamphlets  did 
not  halt  at  "  libellous  insinuations,"  and  became  at  last  so 
fiendishly  shameful  that  authority  was  bound  to  interpose. 

Wesleyan  Methodism  was  travelling  surely  towards  constitu- 
tional change,  which  would  have  been  brought  about  in  orderly 
fashion,  had  it  not  been  for  irritation  caused  to  both  sides  by 
literary  productions  the  spirit  of  which  no  one  now  defends  (A 
Nezv  History  of  Methodism,  vol.  i,  p.  431). 

The  Conference  decided  that  every  minister  should  be 
required  to  answer  "  brotherly  questions  "  concerning  the 
authorship  of  these  virulent  Fly  Sheets.  Three  ministers, 
Samuel  Dunn,  James  Everett,  and  William  Griffith,  refused 
to  answer  these  questions,  and  were  expelled.  "  To  some 
people  the  three  were  martyrs  to  the  cause  of  liberty ;  to 
others  they  were  traitors  to  their  church.  There  was  room 
for  endless  and  acrimonious  di!-,putes." 

104 


[CHAP.  IX]         A  CRISIS  IN  METHODISM  105 

Thereupon  followed  "  agitation  and  convulsion."  The 
Reformers,  as  they  were  called,  rose  up  to  assert  liberal 
doctrines  and  free  the  church  from  a  "  Papal  autocracy." 
The  Conservatives  marshalled  their  legions  to  fight  these 
traitors  and  preserve  the  ancient  tradition  of  their  policy. 

A  large  number  of  secessions  from  the  mother  church  took 
place,  some  through  the  breaking  up  of  the  local  societies  to 
which  the  seceders  were  attached,  or  in  search  of  the  quiet  that 
could  not  be  found  in  confusion  and  worry,  others  through  the 
inconsiderate  sternness  with  which  in  the  emergency  the  regula- 
tions and  the  Conference  were  interpreted  and  enforced.  Men 
who  were  convinced  of  the  wisdom  of  important  changes  in 
administration  were  forced  into  a  false  position  by  the  impossi- 
bility at  the  time  to  concede  any  change,  and  could  extricate 
themselves  only  by  withdrawal.  On  the  whole,  the  loss  of 
membership  due  directly  or  indirectly  to  this  ill-conceived 
agitation  amounted  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  to  not  less  than 
a  hundred  thousand.  .  .  .  Others  associated  themselves  with 
the  expelled  ministers,  and  formed  the  church  of  the  Wesleyan 
Reformers,  which  afterwards  by  amalgamation  helped  to  con- 
stitute the  United  Methodist  Free  Churches  .  .  .  (ibid.,  vol.  i, 
pp.  438-9). 

Thus  a  dispute  concerning  the  government  of  a  church, 
because  of  the  unlovely  spirit  in  which  it  had  been  con- 
ducted —  "  stubbornness,  that  was  neither  free  from  malice 
nor  wise  in  its  choice  of  weapons,  awakened  resentment, 
and  human  nature,  being  what  it  is,  led  inevitably  to  re- 
taliation " —  broadened  into  one  of  those  heresy-hunting 
expeditions  upon  which  no  church  can  enter  without  ex- 
haustion and  disaster.  The  simple  matter  of  dispute,  as 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  has  warned  all  disputants  to  expect, 
wandered  at  once  from  the  particular  to  the  general ;  and, 
in  this  case,  was  "  soon  obscured  by  the  publication  of  a 
series  of  slanders  in  which  little  respect  was  shown  for  age 
or  long  service  or  purity  of  motive."  In  the  end,  ex- 
hausted by  this  pitiful  conflict,  and  rent  by  schi.sm,  the 
Methodists  set  themselves  to  recover  the  simple  faith  of 
their  origin  —  belief  in  conversion,  and  a  methodical  at- 
tention to  religious  duties. 

The  Reformers,  rightly  or  wrongly,  announced  them- 
selves as  the  true  children  of  Methodism,  proclaiming  the 
wisdom  of  revivals  and  seeking  as  the  supreme  object  of 


io6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH   [chap.ix] 

their  existence  the  salvation  of  sinful  and  erring  men  by 
the  divine  miracle  of  conversion.  The  orthodox  party, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  claimed  to  be  the  faithful  guardians  of 
Methodism,  and  kept  a  watchful  eye  upon  revivals,  order- 
ing the  services  of  the  church  with  a  far  more  rigid  over- 
lordship  than  existed  in  the  Anglican  Communion.  Men 
tended  to  one  camp  or  the  other  according  to  their  temper- 
aments, and  for  many  years  the  separation  was  so  deep 
and  so  wide  that  few  dreamed  it  could  ever  be  bridged. 

Such  was  the  nature  of  this  agitation,  and  such  the  con- 
dition of  the  Wesleyan  Methodist  Church,  in  the  year  1850, 
when  William  Booth,  slaving  hard  to  earn  daily  bread  in 
London,  was  an  obscure  and  discouraged  lay  preacher  in 
its  ranks,  of  whom  neither  the  pontifical  Dr.  Bunting  nor 
the  rebellious  and  expelled  Samuel  Dunn  —  who  had  been 
his  own  minister  in  Nottingham  —  took  the  least  account. 


CHAPTER  X 

TELLS  HOW  WILLIAM  BOOTH  BECAME  A  PASTOR,  AND  INTRO- 
DUCES  THE  READER  TO   CATHERINE   MUMFORD 

185O-I85I 

The  storm  of  this  disputation  raged  with  violence.  But 
it  does  not  seem  to  have  driven  William  Booth  from  his 
path  or  to  have  drawn  him  to  the  one  side  or  the  other. 
"  Mr.  Booth,"  says  W.  T.  Stead,  "  kept  apart  from  the 
controversy.  His  sympathies  were  then,  as  always,  on  the 
side  of  authority." 

This  statement,  which  may  surprise  many  people,  is  a 
true  statement.  William  Booth  was  antipathetic  to  violent 
change,  hated  rebellion,  suspected  "  reform,"  and  cherished 
discipline  and  obedience  as  cardinal  virtues.  His  story  for 
the  next  twenty  years  is  the  tragic  Odyssey  of  a  strong 
and  original  soul  labouring  to  follow  his  star  along  the 
beaten  track  of  authority,  struggling  to  get  the  new  wine 
of  his  unquenchable  zeal  into  the  shrunken  skins  of  tradi- 
tion, striving  to  move  his  church  along  with  him  out  of  the 
slough  of  a  stagnant  formalism.  And  the  irony  of  it  is,  that 
the  churches  which  expelled  him  and  literally  drove  him 
into  the  wilderness,  which  during  the  most  difficult  years 
of  his  existence  opposed  him,  censured  him,  maligned  him, 
not  only  came  to  adopt  his  methods  and  follow  his  ex- 
ample, but,  when  it  was  too  late,  made  overtures  for  his 
reception  into  their  midst. 

In  his  old  age  William  Booth  was  received  by  King 
Edward  the  Seventh.  "  Tell  me.  General,"  asked  the 
Sovereign,  "  how  do  you  get  on  now  with  the  Churches  ? 
What  is  their  attitude  towards  you?" 

The  old  man  looked  shrewdly  at  the  King,  his  eyes 
twinkled,  and  he  made  answer,  "  Sir,  they  imitate  me." 
At  which  the  King  laughed  with  a  good  understanding. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  was  conscrxative  and  on 
the  side  of  authority.     He  knew  very  well  what  dissension 

107 


io8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        Ichap. 

existed  in  the  Wesleyan  body,  but  he  endeavoured  to  stop 
his  ears  against  the  unprofitable  sounds  of  discord. 

What  was  in  his  mind,  seething  and  burning  there,  at 
this  momentous  epoch  of  his  Hfe?  Happily  a  letter  exists, 
the  oldest  known  of  his  letters,  which  answers  that  ques- 
tion with  a  fulness  invaluable  to  this  narrative.  The  letter 
is  dated  October  30,  1849,  ^^^  is  addressed  to  John 
Savage  in  Nottingham,  one  of  the  young  men  who  had 
served  as  a  disciple  in  the  streets  and  slums  of  that  city : 

How  are  you  going  on  ?  I  know  you  are  happy.  I  know  you 
are  living  to  God,  and  working  for  Jesus.  Grasp  still  firmer 
the  standard.  Unfold  still  wider  the  battle-flag!  Press  still 
closer  on  the  ranks  of  the  enemy,  and  mark  your  pathway  still 
more  distinctly  with  trophies  of  Emmanuel's  grace,  and  with 
enduring  monuments  of  Jesus'  power  !  The  trumpet  has  given 
the  signal  for  the  conflict !  Your  General  assures  of  success 
and  a  glorious  reward ;  your  crown  is  already  held  out.  Then 
why  delay  ?  Why  doubt  ?  Onward  !  Onward !  Onward !  Christ 
for  me!  Be  that  your  motto  ...  be  that  your  battle-cry  .  .  . 
be  that  your  war-note  ...  be  that  your  consolation  ...  be 
that  your  plea  when  asking  the  mercy  of  God  —  your  end  when 
offering  it  to  man  .  .  .  your  hope  when  encircled  by  darkness 
.  .  .  your  triumph  and  victory  when  attacked  and  overcome  by 
death !  Christ  for  me !  Tell  it  to  men  who  are  living  and 
dying  in  sin !  Tell  it  to  Jesus,  that  you  have  chosen  Him  to  be 
your  Saviour  and  your  God.  Tell  it  to  devils,  and  bid  them 
cease  to  harass,  since  you  are  determined  to  die  for  the  truth ! 

I  preached  on  Sabbath  last  —  a  respectable  but  dull  and  life- 
less congregation.  Notwithstanding  I  had  liberty  both  praying 
and  preaching,  I  had  not  the  assistance  of  a  single  "  Amen  "  or 
"  Hallelujah  "  the  whole  of  the  service !  It  is  hard  work  to 
labour  for  an  hour  and  a  half  in  the  pulpit  and  then  come  down 
and  do  the  work  of  the  prayer-meeting  as  well !  I  want  some 
Savages,  and  Proctors,  and  Frosts,  and  Hoveys,  and  Robinsons, 
here  with  me  in  the  prayer-meetings,  and  glory  to  God  we 
would  carry  all  before  us !  Praise  God  for  living  at  Notting- 
ham every  hour  you  are  in  it !  Oh,  to  live  Christ  on  earth,  and 
to  meet  you  once  more,  never  to  part,  in  a  better  world. 

In  spite  of  a  phraseology  which  may  slightly  disturb 
a  later  refinement,  this  letter  has  a  ring  of  truth  which 
is  worth  an  infinite  amount  of  prettiness  and  decorous 
restraint.  It  is  the  letter  of  a  true  man,  the  authentic  cry 
of  a  soul  desperately  earnest.  One  can  no  more  doubt  this 
utterance  than  one  can  doubt  the  Psalms  of  David.     Narrow 


X]  ON  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT 


109 


and  limited  may  have  been  the  youth's  outlook  upon  the 
world,  wild  and  strange  his  language,  panting  and  over- 
heated his  zeal,  but  never  yet  did  a  charlatan  so  utter  his 
soul  to  a  friend. 

With  such  a  temperament  he  was  destined  to  suffer  the 
dark  reactions  of  ecstasy  and  boundless  confidence.  There 
were  moments  when  his  soul  was  plunged  into  dejection, 
moments  when  he  doubted  his  call,  moments  when  he  was 
thrown  into  despair  merely  by  contact  with  a  shallow  cul- 
ture or  a  little  theological  pomposity. 

But  again  and  again  the  youth  threw  off  the  oppression 
of  this  scepticism,  felt  within  himself  strong  and  indubi- 
table the  call  of  God.  The  young  man's  tragedy  was  this, 
that  he  felt  at  his  highest  moments  of  ecstasy  so  boundless 
and  so  utter  a  gratitude  to  God  for  bliss  of  such  incom- 
parable rapture  that  he  could  not  doubt  in  those  moments 
of  ravishment  his  power  to  save  mankind  by  lifting  them 
up  with  him  into  this  same  region  of  faith.  But  when 
ecstasy  had  passed,  when  the  soul  had  returned  to  its  poor 
troubled  and  shabby  tenement  of  clay,  then  came  the 
natural  reaction  which  all  idealists  experience  —  the  feeling 
of  exhaustion,  the  haunting  fear  that  never  can  one  lift 
humanity  to  God,  that  one  is  not  scholar  enough  to  enter 
into  controversy  with  the  least  of  the  devils.  Was  he  truly 
called  ?  Had  God  indeed  got  a  work  for  him  to  do  ?  Was 
he  not  perhaps  dangerously  inflated  with  conceit  in  this 
feeling  that  he  could  do  something  for  the  Kingdom  of 
Christ  ? 

Concerning  my  pulpit  efforts,  I  am  more  than  ever  dis- 
couraged. Upon  becoming  acquainted  with  my  congregations, 
I  am  surprised  at  the  amount  of  intellect  which  I  have  endea- 
voured to  address.  I  am  waking  up  as  it  were  from  a  dream, 
and  discover  that  my  hopes  are  vanity,  and  that  I  literally  know 
nothing. 

I  preached  yesterday  at  Norwood  —  a  dear  people.  In  the 
morning  "  Oh,  Lord,  revive  thy  work  "  was  accompanied  with 
blessings,  and  in  the  evening  "  Jesus  weeping  over  Jerusalem," 
though  not  attended  by  pleasurable  feelings  by  myself,  yet  I 
hope  went  home  to  some  hearts.     I  saw  nothing  done! 

Afterwards  I  had  some  conversation  with  one  of  our  local 
preachers  respecting  the  subject  with  regard  to  which  my  heart 


no  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

is  still  burning  —  I  mean  the  full  work.  He  advises  me  by  all 
means  to  offer  myself  next  March,  and  leave  it  in  the  hands  of 
God  and  the  Church.  What  say  you  ?  You  are  my  friend,  the 
chosen  of  my  companions,  the  man  after  my  own  heart.  What 
say  you  ?  I  want  to  be  a  devoted,  simple,  and  sincere  follower 
of  the  Bleeding  Lamb.  I  do  not  desire  the  pastor's  crust  with- 
out having  most  distinctly  received  the  pastor's  call.  And  yet 
my  inmost  spirit  is  panting  for  the  delightful  enjoyment  of 
telling  from  morn  till  eve,  from  eve  till  midnight,  the  glad  tid- 
ings that  mercy  is  free. 

Mercy!  Have  you  heard  the  word?  Have  you  felt  its 
power?  Mercy!  Can  you  describe  its  hidden,  unfathomable 
meaning  ?  Mercy !  Let  the  sound  be  borne  on  every  breeze ! 
Mercy !  Shout  it  to  the  world  around  until  there  is  not  a  sin- 
unpardoned,  a  pollution-spotted,  a  hell-marked  spirit  unwashed, 
unsanctified  !  Until  there  is  not  a  sign  of  the  curse  in  existence, 
not  a  sorrow  unsoothed !  not  a  tear  unwiped  away !  until  the 
world  is  flooded  with  salvation  and  all  men  are  bathing  in  its 
life-giving  streams ! 

In  April,  1850,  he  writes  to  this  same  friend  in  Notting- 
ham : 

But  you  ask  "What  is  your  plan?"  Why,  go  out  to 
Australia  as  Chaplain  on  board  a  convict  ship.  To  face  the 
storm  and  the  billow,  and  the  tempest's  rolling  wave,  and  to 
preach  to  the  very  worst  of  men  Christ's  Salvation. 

The  idea  of  breaking  away  from  his  monotonous  toil 
and  throwing  himself  into  some  hard  and  heroic  work 
lasted  until  November  of  the  same  year,  when  we  find  him 
writing  to  the  same  friend : 

I  am  thinking  of  offering  for  the  general  work  abroad  or  at 
home,  where  the  Church  will  send  me,  or  where  the  world  hath 
need  of  me.  What  say  you?  You  know  I  would  prefer  the 
home  work,  but  the  difficulties  are  so  numerous,  my  ability  is 
not  equal  to  the  task.  It  is  evident,  my  Superintendent  told 
me  so,  that  preachers  are  not  wanted. 

An  incident  occurred  at  this  juncture,  however,  destined 
to  influence  the  whole  course  of  his  after  life.  Among  the 
people  who  listened  to  his  preaching  was  an  enthusiastic 
Wesleyan  layman  of  no  very  lovable  and  agreeable  type, 
but  nevertheless  a  man  of  some  character,  and  one  who 
knew  a  great  man  when  he  saw  him.     This  Wesleyan  lay- 


X]  ox  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT  iii 

man  was  a  Mr,  E.  J.  Rabbits,  a  boot  manufacturer  in  the 
Borough,  who  rose  from  small  things  to  the  position  of  a 
very  large  and  prosperous  employer  of  labour. 

In  his  autobiographical  notes,  William  Booth  has  left 
this  epitome  of  his  first  patron :  "  Self-made  man.  His 
beginning:  borrowed  half-a-crown.  My  last  interview 
with  him :  he  had  just  invested  £60,000  in  good  building 
estate,  the  anxieties  connected  with  which,  I  should  think, 
helped  to  hurry  him  away.  '  The  care  of  riches ! '  "  In 
that  epitaph  one  has,  perhaps,  all  the  biography  one  needs 
of  good  Mr.  Rabbits. 

This  man,  strangely  enough,  for  he  was  altogether  and 
utterly  unlike  William  Booth,  was  the  means  which  led  the 
Nottingham  lad  to  abandon  a  commercial  career  for  the 
life  of  a  minister.  William  Booth  —  one  of  the  most  ex- 
pansive, generous,  tender-hearted,  and  affectionate  of  men 
—  yielded  to  the  persuasions  of  this  earnest  if  somewhat 
narrow-minded  dissenter,  and  through  him  came  not  only 
into  the  ministry  of  the  Christian  religion,  but  into  touch 
with  that  gracious  and  remarkable  woman  who  blessed  his 
life,  stimulated  his  courage,  and  mothered  the  infancy  of 
the  Salvation  Army. 

Mr.  Rabbits  is  not  an  imposing  figure  in  this  narrative, 
but  one  does  not  know  how  the  rest  of  the  story  would  have 
run  but  for  his  sudden  and  transitory  appearance  on  its 
stage.  To  those  who  believe  that  a  Divinity  shapes  our 
ends,  he  must  certainly  seem  an  instrument  in  the  hand  of 
Providence;  and  niggardly  and  half-heartedly  as  he  per- 
formed the  office  assigned  to  him,  he  does  at  least  deserve 
the  recognition,  and  perhaps  the  gratitude,  if  not  the  love,  of 
that  vast  company  better  for  the  life  of  William  Booth. 

Mr.  Rabbits  was  among  the  Reformers.  "  He  had  been 
dissatisfied,"  says  Conmiissioner  Booth-Tucker,  "  for  some 
time  with  what  he  considered  to  be  the  growing  coldness  and 
worldliness  of  the  Orthodox  party,  and  had,  therefore, 
hailed  the  present  [Reform]  movement  with  satisfaction, 
believing  that  it  would  lead  to  a  revival  of  the  old  life  and 
fire.  He  had  been  present  at  the  first  sermon  delivered  by 
Mr.  Booth  in  the  Walworth  Road  Wesleyan  Chapel.  The 
latter  had  launched  out  in  his  usual  unconventional,  earnest 


112  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

manner,  strikingly  in  contrast  with  the  ordinary  ministerial 
style.  Some  of  those  present  responded  heartily,  and  the 
ordinar}^  monotony  of  the  service  was  disturbed  by  quite 
a  brisk  fusillade  of  '  Amens.'  Mr.  Rabbits  was  delighted. 
He  met  the  preacher  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  congratulated 
him  warmly  on  his  sermon,  and  took  him  home  to 
dinner.  .  .  ." 

William  Booth  at  this  time,  it  must  be  remembered,  was 
weary  of  his  daily  work,  and  more  and  more  inclined  to  act 
upon  the  suggestion  first  made  to  him,  as  we  have  seen,  by 
Samuel  Dunn.  He  had  now  proved  to  himself  that  he  had 
power  as  a  preacher;  he  never  walked  through  a  London 
street  without  feeling  an  impulse  towards  the  pulpit ;  and 
he  could  conceive  of  no  life  for  himself  more  consonant  with 
the  will  of  God  than  that  of  a  Methodist  minister. 

Mr.  Rabbits,  in  June,  185 1,  persuaded  him  to  work  among 
the  Reformers,  and  later  on  proceeded  to  settle  the  business 
of  his  entrance  into  the  ministry.  The  story  of  that  negotia- 
tion, as  typical  perhaps  of  the  persuader  as  of  the  persuaded, 
is  told  by  William  Booth  in  the  following  narration : 

Mr.  Rabbits  said  to  me  one  day,  "  You  must  leave  business, 
and  wholly  devote  yourself  to  preaching  the  Gospel." 

"  Impossible,"  I  answered.  **  There  is  no  way  for  me.  No- 
body wants  me." 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  the  people  with  whom  you  have  allied 
yourself  want  an  evangelist." 

"  They  cannot  support  me,"  I  replied,  "  and  I  cannot  live 
on  air." 

*'  That  is  true,  no  doubt,"  was  his  answer.  "  How  much  can 
you  live  on?  " 

I  reckoned  up  carefully.  I  knew  I  should  have  to  provide 
my  own  quarters  and  to  pay  for  my  cooking :  and  as  to  the  living 
itself,  I  did  not  understand  in  those  days  how  this  could  be 
managed  in  as  cheap  a  fashion  as  I  do  now.  After  a  careful 
calculation,  I  told  him  that  I  did  not  see  how  I  could  get  along 
with  less  than  twelve  shillings  a  week. 

"  Nonsense,"  he  said,  "  you  cannot  do  with  less  than 
twenty  shillings  a  week,  I  am  sure." 

"All  right,"  I  said,  "have  it  your  own  way,  if  you  will; 
but  where  is  the  twenty  shillings  to  come  from?" 

"  I  will  supply  it,"  he  said,  "  for  the  first  three  months  at 
least." 


X]  ON  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT  113 

"  Very  good,"  I  answered.  And  the  bargain  was  struck  then 
and  there. 

I  at  once  gave  notice  to  my  master,  who  was  very  angry  and 
said,  "If  it  is  money  you  want,  that  need  not  part  us."  I  told 
him  that  money  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  question,  that  all  I 
wanted  was  the  opportunity  to  spend  my  life  and  powers  pub- 
lishing the  Saviour  to  a  lost  world.  And  so  I  packed  my  port- 
manteau and  went  out  to  begin  a  new  life. 

My  first  need  was  some  place  to  lay  my  head.  After  a  little 
time  spent  in  the  search,  I  found  quarters  in  the  Walworth 
district,  where  I  expected  to  work,  and  took  two  rooms  in  the 
house  of  a  widow  at  five  shillings  a  week,  with  attendance. 
This  I  reckoned  at  the  time  was  a  pretty  good  bargain.  I  then 
went  to  a  furniture  shop  and  bought  some  chairs  and  a  bed,  and 
a  few  other  necessaries.  I  felt  quite  set  up,  and  fully  prepared 
to  settle  quietly  down  to  my  work.  .  .  . 

Three  things  marked  the  day  that  followed  the  one  on  which 
I  shook  hands  with  my  cold-hearted  master  and  said  Good-bye. 
One  of  which  proved  itself  of  no  little  importance,  both  to  my- 
self and  the  world  at  large  in  the  years  that  followed. 

1.  The  first  day  of  my  freedom  was  Good  Friday. 

2.  It  was  also  my  birthday,  the  loth  of  /\pril. 

3.  The  third,  and  most  important  of  all,  was  that  on  that  day 
I  fell  over  head  and  ears  in  love  with  the  precious  woman  who 
afterwards  became  my  Wife. 

In  this  episode  we  have  a  characteristic  example  of 
William  Booth's  honesty  and  impetuous  enthusiasm,  as 
well  as  a  moment's  insight  into  the  mind  of  a  business-like 
dissenter.  Booth  was  willing  to  maintain  himself  as  a 
preacher  of  the  Gospel  for  twelve  shillings  a  week.  The 
astute  and  practical  Rabbits  would  not  hear  of  such  a 
sacrifice,  and  increased  the  weekly  wage  to  twenty  shillings. 
William  Booth  abandoned  his  daily  work,  threw  himself 
into  the  arms  of  the  future,  and  trusted  blindly  to  God. 
Air.  Rabbits  made  himself  responsible  for  a  wage  of  twenty 
shillings  a  week,  limited  to  a  period  of  three  months.  For 
a  sum  of  twelve  pounds,  then,  the  founder  of  the  Salvation 
Army  disposed  of  his  genius  and  his  enthusiasm,  and  with 
no  other  provision  than  this  for  the  next  three  months,  and 
no  provision  at  all  beyond  that  period,  entered  the  ministry 
as  a  revivalist  preacher. 

There  were  certainly  few  preachers  among  the  Methodists 
or  any  other  body  of  Christians  more  perilously  situated 


114      ■    THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

just  then  than  William  Booth.  One  can  imagine  this  tall, 
gaunt,  clean-shaven  youth,  with  his  long  raven-coloured 
hair  and  his  stooping  shoulders,  entering  upon  his  five- 
shilling  room  "  with  attendance,"  looking  upon  his  furni- 
ture, and  feeling  "  quite  set  up,"  fully  prepared,  as  he  says, 
to  settle  quietly  down  to  his  work.  But  there  was  to  be  no 
quiet  for  this  wayfarer  then  or  afterwards.  On  the  verv 
first  day  of  his  freedom  he  was  to  suffer  the  commotion  of 
love,  was  to  realize  that  twenty  shillings  a  week  goes  but 
a  little  way  in  domestic  housekeeping,  and  that  an  assur- 
ance of  board  and  lodging  for  three  months  is  no  cheerful 
primrose  prospect  for  a  young  man  who  is  "  over  head  and 
ears  in  love."  Work  there  was  to  be  for  him  in  this  world, 
such  work  as  no  other  man  in  his  generation  could  perform, 
but  no  peace,  no  quiet.  From  that  day  onwards,  even  to 
the  last  hour  of  his  life,  he  was  to  be  opposed  by  the  enemy 
of  peace  and  the  adversary  of  quiet,  was  to  face  confusion 
and  darkness,  was  to  stagger  under  buffetings  of  misfortune, 
was  to  be  stricken  to  his  knees  by  agony  and  tragedy,  was 
to  know  the  piercing  anxiety,  the  bitter  distress  of  a  poverty 
that  increased  with  his  victories  and  intensified  with  his 
opportunities  for  serving  mankind;  these  things  he  was  to 
know,  this  burden  he  was  to  carry,  this  work  he  was  to  do 
in  the  world,  but  quiet  was  never  to  come  near  his  heart. 
He  was  marked  out  for  suffering,  he  was  chosen  for  battle 
and  tempest.  But  he  was  to  know  the  love  of  a  "  precious 
woman." 

Bitter  as  was  to  be  his  first  experience  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  it  was  coloured  by  romance,  though  one  may 
question  whether  this  hopeless  passion  of  his  heart  was  not 
at  the  time  the  chief  of  his  woes. 

Among  the  people  to  whom  Mr.  Rabbits  introduced 
William  Booth  was  a  family  named  Mum  ford,  living  in 
Brixton  —  at  that  time  a  somewhat  picturesque  suburb  of 
London,  more  or  less  fashionable  among  rich  City  mer- 
chants. A  daughter  of  this  house,  for  whose  opinion  Mr. 
Rabbits  entertained  a  great  respect,  had  expressed  admira- 
tion of  a  sermon  preached  by  William  Booth  as  a  layman 
in  Binfield  Hall,  a  small  chapel  in  the  neighbouring  suburb 
of  Clapham,  situated  close  to  the  Swan  Tavern  of  Stock- 


x]  ON  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT  115 

well,  where  the  famous  racehorse  of  that  name  had  been 
trained.  J\Ir.  Rabbits  had  reported  this  admiration  to  the 
young  preacher,  and  had  arranged  that  he  should  make  ac- 
quaintance with  the  Mum  fords.  From  their  first  meeting, 
both  William  Booth  and  Catherine  Mumford  were  con- 
scious of  a  strong  liking  for  each  other ;  but  it  was  not  until 
he  had  entered  upon  the  period  of  study  and  preparation  for 
ministry  among  the  Reformers,  and  on  the  first  day  of  his 
freedom  from  a  secular  life,  that  he  fell  head  over  ears  in 
love  with  this  remarkable  woman. 

Before  we  tell  the  story  of  that  love,  it  is  necessary  to 
say  something  of  the  Mumford  family. 

Mrs.  Mumford,  for  whom  William  Booth  cherished  a 
deep  affection  and  a  reverence  that  reacted  on  his  own 
character,  was  a  woman  whose  history,  if  it  could  be  told 
with  fulness,  would  read  like  a  novel  written  in  collabora- 
tion by  Charlotte  Bronte  and  George  Eliot.  She  was  in 
many  ways  a  figure  of  the  epoch.  From  an  adventure  in 
love,  full  of  passion  and  tragedy,  she  had  passed  to  a  sedate 
marriage,  and  deepened  her  spiritual  life  to  such  a  depth 
of  piety  as  one  finds  in  Adam  Bedc.  Something  of  her 
love  story,  told  in  a  style  very  appropriate  to  the  popular 
romances  of  the  period,  is  to  be  found  in  Commissioner 
Booth-Tucker's  Life  of  Catherine  Booth.  He  tells  us  how 
she  became  engaged  in  youth  to  a  man  in  her  own  social 
position,  who  was  approved  of  by  her  father,  Mr.  Milward, 
and  who  appeared  to  be  in  every  respect  a  desirable 
husband. 

Her  mother  had  died  some  years  previously.  Her  father  was 
one  who  felt  that  his  duty  to  his  daughter  had  ended  in  supply- 
ing her  temporal  needs.  The  aunt,  who  kept  house  for  him. 
was  a  being  of  harsh  and  unsympathetic  material.  No  doubt 
these  loveless  surroundings  helped  Miss  Milward  to  think  the 
more  of  her  choice,  and  she  fancied  herself  upon  the  eve  of  life- 
long felicity.  To  her  friends  the  match  seemed  a  desirable  one, 
and  had  met  with  unhesitating  approbation.  The  prospects 
were  brilliant,  and  the  wedding-day  had  been  fixed,  when,  on 
the  very  eve  of  her  marriage,  certain  circumstances  came  to  her 
knowledge  which  proved  conclusively  that  lier  lover  was  not  the 
high-souled,  noble  character  that  she  had  supposed  him  to  be ; 
indeed  that  he  was  unworthy  of  the  womanly  love  and  con- 


ii6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

fidence  that  she  had  reposed  in  him.  With  the  same  prompt- 
ness and  decision  which  afterwards  characterized  her  daughter, 
Miss  Mihvard's  mind  was  made  up,  and  the  engagement  was 
immediately  broken  off. 

It  was  in  vain  that  day  after  day  her  lover  called  at  the 
house,  in  the  hope  that  he  might  persuade  her  to  relent.  She 
dared  not  trust  herself  even  to  see  him,  lest  she  should  fall 
beneath  the  still  keenly  realized  temptation,  and  lest  her  heart 
should  get  the  better  of  her  judgment.  At  length,  seized  with 
despair,  he  turned  his  horse's  head  from  the  door  and  galloped 
away,  he  knew  not,  cared  not,  whither  —  galloped  till  his  horse 
was  covered  with  foam  —  galloped  till  it  staggered  and  fell, 
dying,  beneath  him,  while  he  rose  to  his  feet  a  hopeless  maniac ! 
The  anxiety  had  been  too  much  for  his  brain ;  and  the  next 
news  that  Miss  Milward  received  was  that  he  had  been  taken  to 
an  asylum,  where  he  would  probably  spend  the  rest  of  his  days. 

The  narrative  proceeds  with  an  account  of  Miss  Mil- 
ward's  prostration  after  this  terrible  experience,  the  failure 
of  doctors  to  revive  her  interests  in  life,  the  coming  of  a 
Methodist  preacher  into  her  neighbourhood,  her  conversion 
and  restoration  to  health,  her  subsequent  engagement  to 
a  lay  preacher  named  Mumford,  and  her  marriage  to  this 
gentleman  in  defiance  of  her  father's  command,  who  turned 
her  penniless  out  of  his  house  and  forbade  her  ever  to  enter 
his  doors  again. 

Catherine  Mumford  was  the  only  daughter  of  this  mar- 
riage in  a  family  of  five  children.  She  was  a  singularly 
intellectual  and  forceful  child,  responding  with  heart  and 
soul  to  the  rigorous  and  puritanical  training  of  her  mother, 
disliking  novels,  delighting  in  history,  expressing  vigorous 
judgments  on  such  famous  characters  as  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte —  whose  brutal  and  selfish  victories  she  would  com- 
pare with  the  more  humane  conquests  of  Julius  Csesar  —  and 
revealing  on  every  side  of  her  character  an  unmistakable 
predilection  for  serious  things.  There  was  no  element  of 
submission  in  her  response  to  Mrs.  Mumford's  training; 
nothing  in  her  nature  needed  to  be  crushed  and  distorted 
into  the  semblance  of  puritanism;  she  herself  was  a  born 
puritan  to  whom  the  true  and  genuine  gospel  of  puritanism 
made  unequivocal  appeal. 

One  trait  in  the  childhood  of  this  precocious  girl  deserves 
a  particular  attention.     It  might  be  thought  that  a  nature 


X]  ON  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT  117 

thus  stern  and  sensible  would  be  proof  against  those  little 
tendernesses  of  affection  which  make  childhood  so  exquisite 
and  adorable.  But  Catherine  Mumford  had  to  a  singular 
degree  one  of  the  most  amiable  of  these  tender  suscepti- 
bilities. She  was  quite  passionately  devoted  to  dumb  ani- 
mals, and  could  not  bear  either  to  see  or  to  hear  about 
the  sufferings  of  these  little  brothers  and  sisters  of  humanity. 
It  might  also  seem  that  the  ineffaceable  impression  made 
upon  her  mother's  mind  by  the  horse  that  was  flogged  and 
spurred  to  its  death  by  her  madman  lover  had  been  trans- 
mitted to  Catherine  Mumford  in  the  form  of  this  singular 
sensitiveness  to  animal  suffering.  She  was,  in  fact,  as  the 
following  incidents  narrated  by  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker 
will  show,  in  spite  of  the  rigour  of  her  mother's  training,  in 
spite  of  her  own  temperamental  devotion  to  practical  com- 
mon sense,  a  child  who  not  merely  shuddered  at  pain,  but 
whose  heart  was  deeply  pierced  and  earnestly  moved  by 
suffering  of  any  kind. 

One  day.  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker  says,  she  saw  a 
prisoner  being  dragged  to  the  lock-up  by  a  constable. 

A  jeering  mob  was  hooting  the  unfortunate  culprit.  His 
utter  loneliness  appealed  powerfully  to  her.  It  seemed  that  he 
had  not  a  friend  in  the  world.  Quick  as  lightning  Catherine 
sprang  to  his  side,  and  marched  down  the  street  with  him, 
determined  that  he  should  feel  that  there  was  at  least  one  heart 
that  sympathized  with  him,  whether  it  might  be  for  his  fault  or 
his  misfortune  that  he  was  suffering.  .  .  . 

She  could  not  endure  to  see  animals  ill-treated  without 
expostulating  and  doing  her  utmost  to  stop  the  cruelty.  Many 
a  time  she  would  run  out  into  the  street,  heedless  of  every 
personal  risk,  to  plead  with  or  threaten  the  perpetrator  of  some 
cruel  act.  On  one  occasion,  when  but  a  little  girl,  the  sight  of 
the  cruel  goading  of  some  sheep  so  filled  her  soul  with  indigna- 
tion and  anguish,  that  she  rushed  home  and  threw  herself  on 
the  sofa  in  a  speechless  paroxysm  of  grief. 

"  My  childish  heart,"  she  tells  us,  "  rejoiced  greatly  in  the 
speculations  of  Wesley  and  Butler  with  regard  to  the  possibility 
of  a  future  life  for  animals,  in  which  God  might  make  up  to 
them  for  the  suffering  and  pain  inflicted  on  them  here.  .  .  ." 

Like  her  other  benevolences,  Mrs.  Booth's  kindness  to 
animals  took  a  practical  turn.  "  If  I  were  you,"  she  would  say 
to  the  donkey-boys  at  the  seaside  resorts,  where  in  later  years 
she  went  to  lecture,  "  I  sliouid  like  to  feel,  when  I  went  to  sleep 


ii8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

at  night,  that  I  had  done  my  very  best  for  my  donkey.  I  would 
like  to  know  that  I  had  been  kind  to  it,  and  had  given  it  the 
best  food  I  could  afford;  in  fact,  that  it  had  as  jolly  a  day  as 
though  I  had  been  the  donkey,  and  the  donkey  me."  And  she 
would  enforce  the  argument  with  a  threepenny  or  a  sixpenny 
bit,  which  helped  to  make  it  palatable. 

Then,  turning  to  her  children,  she  would  press  the  lesson 
home  by  saying,  "  That  is  how  I  should  like  to  see  my  children 
spend  their  pennies,  in  encouraging  the  boys  to  be  kind  to  their 
donkeys." 

If,  in  her  walks  or  drives,  Mrs.  Booth  happened  to  notice 
any  horses  left  out  to  graze  that  looked  overworked  and  ill-fed, 
she  would  send  round  to  the  dealers  for  a  bushel  of  corn,  stow- 
ing it  away  in  some  part  of  the  house.  Then,  when  evening  fell, 
she  would  sally  forth  with  a  child  or  servant  carrying  a  supply 
of  food  to  the  field  in  which  the  poor  creatures  had  been 
marked,  watching  with  the  utmost  satisfaction  while  they  had  a 
"  real  good  tuck  in."  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the 
horses  were  soon  able  to  recognize  her,  and  would  run  along  the 
hedge  whenever  their  benefactress  passed  by,  craning  their 
necks  and  snorting  their  thanks,  to  the  surprise  and  perplexity 
of  those  who  were  not  in  the  secret. 

Again  and  again  has  Mrs.  Booth  rushed  to  the  window, 
flung  up  the  heavy  sash,  and  called  out  to  some  tradesman 
who  was  ill-treating  his  animal,  not  resting  till  she  had  com- 
pelled him  to  desist. 

"  Life  is  such  a  puzzle,"  she  used  to  say,  "  but  we  must  leave 
it,  leave  it  with  God.  I  have  suffered  so  much  over  what  ap- 
peared to  be  the  needless  and  inexplicable  sorrows  and  pains  of 
the  animal  creation,  as  well  as  over  those  of  the  rest  of  the 
world,  that  if  I  had  not  come  to  know  God  by  a  personal  revela- 
tion of  Him  to  my  own  soul,  and  to  trust  Him  because  I  knew 
Him,  I  can  hardly  say  into  what  scepticism  I  might  not  have 
fallen." 

On  one  occasion,  when  driving  out  with  a  friend,  Mrs.  Booth 
saw  a  boy  with  a  donkey  a  little  way  ahead  of  them.  She 
noticed  him  pick  up  something  out  of  the  cart  and  hit  the  donkey 
with  it.  In  the  distance  it  appeared  like  a  short  stick,  but  to  her 
horror  she  perceived,  as  they  drove  past,  that  it  was  a  heavy- 
headed  hammer,  and  that  already  a  dreadful  wound  had  been 
made  in  the  poor  creature's  back.  She  called  to  the  coachman 
to  stop ;  but  before  it  was  possible  for  him  to  do  so,  or  for  those 
in  the  carriage  with  her  to  guess  what  was  the  matter,  she  had 
flung  herself,  at  the  risk  of  her  life,  into  the  road.  Her  dress 
caught  in  the  step  as  she  sprang,  and  had  it  not  been  torn  with 
the  force  of  her  leap,  she  must  have  been  seriously  injured,  if 
not  killed.  As  it  was,  she  fell  on  her  face,  and  was  covered 
with  the  dust  of  the  hot  and  sandy  road.     Rising  to  her  feet. 


X]  ON  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT  119 

however,  she  rushed  forward  and  seized  the  reins.  The  boy 
tried  to  drive  on,  but  she  clung  persistently  to  the  shaft,  until 
her  friends  came  to  her  assistance.  After  burning  words  of 
warning,  followed  by  tender  appeals  of  intercession,  such  as 
from  even  the  hard  heart  of  the  donkey-driver  would  not  easily 
be  effaced,  she  at  last  induced  him  to  hand  over  his  hammer, 
and  succeeded  in  obtaining  his  name  and  address.  Then,  over- 
come with  excitement  and  exertion,  she  fainted  away,  and  was 
with  difificulty  carried  home. 

Another  story  is  told  of  how  a  favourite  retriever  of 
hers,  named  Waterford,  who  loved  her  and  followed  her 
wherever  she  went,  hearing  her  cry  one  day,  sprang  to  her 
rescue  through  a  large  glass  window,  thus  incurring  the 
v^rath  of  Mr.  Mum  ford,  who  had  the  dog  shot.  "For 
months,"  says  Catherine  Mumford,  *'  I  suffered  intolerably, 
especially  in  realizing  that  it  was  in  the  effort  to  alleviate 
my  sufferings  the  beautiful  creature  had  lost  its  life.  Days 
passed  before  I  could  speak  to  my  father.  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  love  episode  in  the  life  of  Catherine  Mumford 
which  she  decided  by  a  text  from  the  Bible,  Be  ye  not 
unequally  yoked  together  with  unbelievers.  The  lover  was  a 
cousin  from  Derbyshire,  "  a  young  man  of  somewhat 
striking  appearance,  and  with  more  than  ordinary  capac- 
ity"; and  although  "she  was  not  the  most  ardent  of  the 
two,  she  could  not  prevent  her  heart  responding  in  some 
measure  to  his  love."  But  he  Avas  not  serious  enough 
about  religion,  and  Catherine  Mumford  presently  dismissed 
him,  a  step  which  she  says  cost  her  "  a  considerable  effort 
at  the  time." 

She  was  a  delicate  child,  and  for  some  years  had  suffered 
from  a  spinal  complaint,  making  painful  acquaintance  in 
the  most  fervorous  period  of  youth  with  mattress  and  sofa. 
But  she  was  devotedly  nursed  by  her  mother;  she  pursued 
her  studies  in  history  and  geography;  she  read  an  immense 
amount  of  contemporary  theology,  and  acquired  an  en- 
thusiasm for  missionary  enterprise  and  a  passion  for 
spiritual  religion  which  deepened  to  a  very  striking  and 
saint-like  devotion  in  her  wonderful  after  life. 

When  William  Booth  crossed  her  path  she  was  an  able, 
masterful,  and  brilliant  young  woman,  who  delighted  in 
table  controversies,  .who  was  somewhat  proud  of  her  logical 


I20  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

adroitness,  and  who  must  have  been,  one  thinks,  as  great 
a  terror  to  the  loose  thinkers  and  careless  talkers  of  her 
little  circle  as  William  Gladstone  in  a  more  exalted  sphere. 
It  is  tolerably  certain  that  she  was  improved,  and  very 
deeply  improved,  by  her  intimacy  with  William  Booth. 
There  was  something  in  her  mind,  at  this  period,  too  like 
the  self-assertiveness  of  an  intellect  rejoicing  in  its  own 
trenchant  dexterity  to  promise  sweetness  and  light.  She 
was  able,  brilliant,  daring,  and  righteous  to  a  fault ;  but 
one  doubts  if  her  heart  at  that  time  had  asserted  its  equal 
partnership  with  her  brain.  Something  of  this  brilliant 
young  person's  character,  and  her  original  genius,  may  be 
seen  in  a  letter  which  she  sent  to  a  minister  who  had 
preached  a  sermon  with  which  she  disagreed.  The  modesty 
of  the  approach  does  not  minimise  the  force  and  vigour 
of  the  attack;  and  certainly  such  views  in  the  'fifties  were 
unusual,  and  in  a  girl  of  her  age  remarkable  enough  to  draw 
attention. 

Dear  Sir  —  You  will  doubtless  be  surprised  at  the  receipt  of 
this  communication,  and  I  assure  you  it  is  with  great  reluctance 
and  a  feeling  of  profound  respect  that  I  make  it.  Were  it  not 
for  the  high  estimate  I  entertain  both  for  your  intellect  and 
heart,  I  would  spare  the  sacrifice  it  costs  me.  But  because  I 
believe  you  love  truth,  of  whatever  kind,  and  would  not  will- 
ingly countenance  or  propagate  erroneous  views  on  any  subject, 
I  venture  to  address  you. 

Excuse  me,  my  dear  sir ;  I  feel  myself  but  a  babe  in  compari- 
son with  you.  But  permit  me  to  call  your  attention  to  a  subject 
on  which  my  heart  has  been  deeply  pained.  In  your  discourse 
on  Sunday  morning,  when  descanting  on  the  policy  of  Satan  in 
first  attacking  the  most  assailable  of  our  race,  your  remarks 
appeared  to  imply  woman's  intellectual  and  even  moral  inferior- 
ity to  man.  I  cannot  believe  that  you  intended  it  to  be  so  under- 
stood, at  least  with  reference  to  her  moral  nature.  But  I  fear 
the  tenor  of  your  remarks  would  too  surely  leave  an  impression 
on  the  minds  of  many  of  your  congregation,  and  I  for  one  can- 
not but  deeply  regret  that  a  man  for  whom  I  entertain  such  a 
high  veneration  should  appear  to  hold  such  views  derogatory 
to  my  sex,  and  which  I  believe  to  be  unscriptural  and  dishon- 
ouring to  God. 

Permit  me,  my  dear  sir,  to  ask  whether  you  have  ever  made 
the  subject  of  woman's  equality  as  a  being  the  matter  of  calm 
investigation  and  thought?     If  not,  I  would,  with  all  deference, 


X]  ON  THE  STEPS  OF  THE  PULPIT  121 

suggest  it  as  a  subject  well  worth  the  exercise  of  your  brain, 
and  calculated  amply  to  repay  any  research  you  may  bestow 
upon  it. 

So  far  as  Scriptural  evidence  is  concerned,  did  I  but  possess 
ability  to  do  justice  to  the  subject,  I  dare  take  my  stand  on  it 
against  the  world  in  defending  her  perfect  equality.  And  it  is 
because  I  am  persuaded  that  no  honest,  unprejudiced  investiga- 
tion of  the  sacred  volume  can  give  perpetuity  to  the  mere  as- 
sumptions and  false  notions  which  have  gained  currency  in 
society  on  this  subject,  that  I  so  earnestly  commend  it  to  your 
attention.  I  have  such  confidence  in  the  nobility  of  your  nature 
that  I  feel  certain  neither  prejudice  nor  custom  can  blind  you 
to  the  truth,  if  you  will  once  turn  attention  to  the  matter. 

That  woman  is,  in  consequence  of  her  inadequate  education, 
generally  inferior  to  man  intellectually,  I  admit.  But  that  she 
is  naturally  so,  as  your  remarks  seem  to  imply,  I  see  no  cause 
to  believe.  I  think  the  disparity  is  as  easily  accounted  for  as 
the  difference  between  woman  intellectually  in  this  country  and 
under  the  degrading  slavery  of  heathen  lands.  No  argument, 
in  my  judgment,  can  be  drawn  from  past  experience  on  this 
point,  because  the  past  has  been  false  in  theory  and  wrong  in 
practice.  Never  yet  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  woman 
been  placed  on  an  intellectual  footing  with  man.  Her  training 
from  babyhood,  even  in  this  highly-favoured  land,  has  hitherto 
been  such  as  to  cramp  and  paralyse  rather  than  to  develop  and 
strengthen  her  energies,  and  calculated  to  crush  and  wither  her 
aspirations  after  mental  greatness  rather  than  to  excite  and 
stimulate  them.  And  even  where  the  more  directly  depressing 
intluence  has  been  withdrawn,  the  indirect  and  more  powerful 
stimulus  has  been  wanting. 

A  few  months  older  than  William  Booth  and  his  superior 
in  intellectual  force,  Catherine  Mumford  was  his  junior  in 
spiritual  experience,  and  at  that  time  his  inferior  in  person- 
ality. He  lacked  the  culture  which  she  brought  to  him 
w^ith  a  fervent  admiration  for  his  rugged,  rock-hewn 
strength;  she  lacked  that  boundless  depth  of  self-sacrificing 
love,  that  wide  and  overflowing  ocean  of  yearning,  pitying, 
human  affection  which  was  the  gift  he  brought  to  her,  and 
the  human  influence  which  made  her  in  after  years  "  the 
Mother  of  the  Army."  One  would  say  that  while  Catherine 
Mum  ford's  tendency  might  have  been  towards  a  central 
anxiety  concerning  the  condition  of  her  own  soul,  William 
Booth's  obvious  path  of  development  was  tow^ards  a  central 
anxiety  for  the  souls  of  all  mankind.     Catherine  Mumford, 


122  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH    [chap.x] 

as  a  woman  and  an  invalid,  in  spite  of  a  genuine  desire  to 
spread  her  knowledge  of  conversion,  would  almost  certainly 
have  remained  an  interesting  and  powerful  figure  in  a 
group  of  earnest  sectarian  Christians,  but  for  the  en- 
franchisement and  the  impulse  towards  humanity  brought 
into  her  sheltered  life  by  this  rough-wrought  son  of  sorrow 
and  distress.  In  a  certain  measure  William  Booth  came 
into  the  life  of  Catherine  Mumford  as  Robert  Browning 
came  into  the  life  of  Elizabeth  Barrett.  In  each  case  there 
was  a  resurrection  of  the  woman,  and  a  beauty  added  to 
the  man. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY 
1852 

William  Booth  met  Catherine  Mumford  for  the  first  time 
when  he  was  still  a  lay  preacher.  Mr.  Rabbits  gave  a  large 
party  at  his  house  one  afternoon  to  which  Mrs.  and  Miss 
Mumford  were  invited,  and  at  which  William  Booth  made 
a  late  arrival.  No  sooner  did  the  young  man  make  his 
appearance  —  a  romantic  appearance,  one  conjectures,  at 
this  respectable  tea-party  —  than  Mr.  Rabbits  seized  upon 
him  and  insisted  that  he  should  recite  a  terrible  American 
poem  concerned  with  drunkenness.  William  Booth  ob- 
jected. He  did  not  want  to  recite.  He  did  not  want  to 
be  forced  into  prominence.  He  protested  that  the  piece 
was  not  in  the  key  of  social  festivity.  But  the  irrepres- 
sible Mr.  Rabbits,  who  had  heard  him  recite  this  same  piece 
with  great  effect  some  few  days  previously,  would  take  no 
denial.  And  so  William  Booth  occupied  the  central  place 
in  that  crowded  drawing-room,  and  declaimed  American 
poetry. 

The  recitation  had  a  very  awkward  effect.  It  started  a 
controversy.  The  guests  of  Mr.  Rabbits  were  by  no  means 
convinced  of  the  virtue  of  teetotalism.  They  saw  con- 
siderable danger  in  the  advocacy  of  so  stringent  a  gospel ; 
they  declared  themselves  in  favour  of  temperance  and  mod- 
eration. Suddenly  into  the  midst  of  this"  disturbing  dis- 
cussion came  Catherine  Mumford,  with  a  downrightness 
of  opinion,  a  logic  unmatched  in  that  room,  and  a  searching 
analysis  troublesome,  one  imagines,  at  a  tea-party,  and 
sided  entirely  with  William  Booth. 

This  was  their  first  meeting,  marked  by  an  alliance  in 
battle.  He  saw  her  again,  more  than  once,  and  was  in- 
creasingly impressed  by  her  force  of  character,  the  purity 
of  her  faith,  and  her  instinct  for  worship.  He  respected 
her,  and  no  doubt  she  was  one  of  those  who  unwittingly 

123 


124  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

discouraged  his  "  pulpit  efforts  "  by  the  extent  and  quahty 
of  her  intellect. 

On  that  day,  the  day  upon  which  he  finally  relinquished 
his  business  career  for  the  ministry,  the  first  day  of  his 
freedom,  he  once  more  encountered  Miss  Mumford,  and 
again  through  the  intervention  of  Mr.  Rabbits.  The  day 
was  the  loth  of  April,  1852,  Good  Friday,  his  own  birthday, 
and  the  day  on  which  his  great  aspiration  had  come  to 
reality. 

Mr.  Rabbits  caught  him  at  the  moment  of  his  starting 
off  to  pay  a  visit,  and  insisted  that  he  should  go  with  him 
to  a  service  of  the  Reformers  in  a  schoolroom  situated  in 
Cowper  Street,  City  Road.  Somewhat  against  his  will, 
Booth  consented,  and  in  the  schoolroom  once  more  encoun- 
tered Catherine  Mumford.  It  was  a  fateful  meeting.  At 
the  conclusion  of  the  service  he  escorted  this  wonderful 
young  creature  to  her  home  in  Brixton,  and  on  that  journey 
both  the  man  and  the  woman  knew  that  they  loved  each 
other. 

It  was  one  of  those  fallings  in  love  which  are  as  instan- 
taneous as  they  are  mutual,  which  are  neither  approached 
nor  immediately  followed  by  any  formal  declaration  of 
affection,  and  which  manifest  themselves  even  in  the  midst 
of  conversations  altogether  absorbed  in  other  matters.  Sud- 
denly William  Booth  knew  that  he  loved  this  woman ;  and 
at  the  same  moment  the  woman  knew  that  for  her  there 
could  be  no  other  man.  They  compared  notes  afterwards, 
and  confirmed  their  instinctive  supposition ;  but  at  the  time 
no  word  was  said  leading  to  the  possibility  of  such  a  com- 
parison of  feelings. 

And  what  follows  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and 
charming  love  stories  in  the  world  —  the  love  story  of  a  man 
and  a  woman  in  whose  hearts  an  extraordinary  sense  of 
religion  had  the  uppermost  place,  to  whom  everything 
secular  and  human  had  a  divine  relativity,  for  whom  God 
and  His  worship  were  the  sovran  ends  of  their  existence. 
It  is,  in  a  way,  a  Methodist  love  story.  Passion  was  there, 
deep  and  abiding,  but  passion  restrained  by  duty  and  con- 
secrated by  devotion.  An  immense  reverence  for  the 
woman  characterized  the  love  of  the  man,  and  a  deep  self- 


XI]       THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY     125 

sacrificing  faith  in  the  man  and  his  destiny  characterized 
the  love  of  the  woman. 

On  the  very  threshold  of  this  great  love  the  man  was 
Ijroiight  face  to  face  with  hard  necessity.  His  position  was 
insecure;  his  worldly  prospect  could  not  well  be  blacker. 
For,  to  begin  with,  he  was  only  an  irregular  minister;  his 
miserable  wage  was  guaranteed  to  him  only  for  three 
months;  and  the  more  he  saw  of  the  Reformers  the  less 
he  liked  them.  It  tortured  him  to  decide  whether  he  might 
openly  and  frankly  confess  his  love  for  this  woman  who 
was  openly  and  frankly  his  friend.  Dare  he  take  that  step  ? 
Yes.     But  ought  he  to  take  that  step?     Who  should  decide? 

He  prayed,  and  indeed  agonized,  over  that  question. 
The  answer  was  uncertain,  and  his  action  was  uncertain. 
Without  positively  declaring  his  love,  he  hinted  to  his 
friend  this  distress  which  haunted  his  thoughts.  He  made 
it  clear  to  her  that  God  must  have  his  life,  but  asked,  piti- 
fully enough,  and  with  much  burning  eloquence,  whether  he 
might  rightfully  look  for  companionship  on  his  troubled 
road. 

Catherine  Booth  has  described  the  difficulties  of  that 
period,  from  the  evening  when  William  Booth  accompanied 
her  home  after  the  meeting  in  the  City  Road : 

That  little  journey  will  never  be  forgotten  by  either  of  us. 
It  is  true  that  nothing  particular  occurred,  except  that  as  W. 
afterwards  expressed  it,  it  seemed  as  if  God  flashed  simulta- 
neously into  our  hearts  that  affection  which  afterwards  ripened 
into  what  has  proved  at  least  to  be  an  exceptional  union  of 
heart  and  purpose  and  life,  and  which  none  of  the  changing 
vicissitudes  with  which  our  lives  have  been  so  crowded  has 
been  able  to  efface. 

He  impressed  me. 

I  had  been  introduced  to  him  as  being  in  delicate  health, 
and  he  took  the  situation  in  at  a  glance.  His  thought  for  me, 
although  such  a  stranger,  appeared  most  remarkable.  The 
conveyance  shook  me ;  he  regretted  it.  The  talking  exhausted 
me ;  he  saw  it  and  forbade  it.  And  then  we  struck  in  at  once 
in  such  wonderful  harmony  of  view  and  aim  and  feeling  on 
varied  matters  that  passed  rapidly  before  us.  It  seemed  as 
though  we  had  intimately  known  and  loved  each  other  for  years, 
and  suddenly,  after  some  temporary  absence,  had  been  brought 
together  again,  and  before  we  reached  my  home  we  both  sus- 


126  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

pected,  nay,  we  felt  as  though  we  had  been  made  for  each 
other,  and  that  henceforth  the  current  of  our  lives  must  flow 
together. 

It  was  curious,  too,  that  both  of  us  had  an  idea  of  what  we 
should  require  in  the  companion  with  whom  we  allied  ourselves 
for  life,  if  ever  such  an  alliance  should  take  place. 

Singular  to  say,  W.  had  formed  very  similar  notions,  and 
here  we  were  thrown  together  in  this  unexpected  fashion, 
matching  these  pre-conceived  characters,  even  as  though  we 
had  been  made  to  order ! 

My  mother  invited  W.  to  stay  the  night.  He  was,  so  far, 
without  any  home.  He  had  purposed  to  stop  at  his  cousin's. 
Instead  of  that  he  had  got  into  this  meeting,  and  from  this 
meeting  had  come  on  with  me.  What  a  strange  providence ! 
It  seemed  so  to  me. 

No  doubt  we  drew  each  other  out,  and  the  conversation  was 
lively  and  interesting,  and  my  mother  listened,  and  had  her  say, 
and  before  we  parted  she  was  nearly  as  interested  in  him  as  I 
was  myself,  but  still  nothing  was  said  about  the  future.  .  .  . 

W.  went  away  in  a  terrible  controversy,  feeling  that  he 
was  wounded,  and  he  has  often  told  me  since  that  he  felt  that 
for  the  first  time  he  had  met  the  woman  who  filled  up  his  life's 
ideal  of  what  a  wife  should  be.  He  was  really  in  love,  and  yet 
it  was  all  contrary  to  the  plans  he  had  made.  Had  he  not, 
only  the  day  before,  been  able  to  get  away  from  the  business 
yoke  that  had  galled  him  for  these  eight  years  gone  by  ?  Was 
there  not  the  opportunity  now  for  him  to  obtain  the  qualifica- 
tions that  he  was  convinced  he  required  so  grievously  for  the 
mighty  work  that  was  before  him?  Had  he  not  resolved  that 
for  years  to  come  he  would  neither  look  to  the  right  nor  to  the- 
left,  but  go  straight  forward  until  he  had  fitted  himself  to  be  a 
good  minister  of  Jesus  Christ?  Moreover,  what  could  he  do 
with  a  wife?  The  little  society  with  whom  he  had  been  com- 
missioned to  labour  was  only  a  mere  handful  of  mostly  work- 
ing men  that  might  not  hold  together  for  six  months,  and  even 
if  it  did,  might  not  want  him  beyond  that  time  —  even  if  they 
wanted  him  at  all  —  of  which  he  was  not  sure,  knowing  that, 
but  for  Mr.  Rabbits,  he  would  not  have  been  there  at  all.  So 
what  business  had  he  thinking  about  a  wife  or  anything  of  the 
kind?  His  work  seemed  to  be  to  go  on  and  make  himself  a 
nest  before  he  sought  a  mate. 

And  yet,  there  was  the  awkward  fact  staring  him  in  the 
face,  and  although  he  said  to  himself  as  he  walked  away  from 
that  door  that  morning,  "  It  cannot,  must  not,  shall  not  be," 
it  was  not  many  hours  before  he  found  himself  at  that  door 
again.  We  soon  discovered  what  our  mutual  feelings  were, 
and  resolved  that  nothing  should  be  done  in  haste;  in  short, 
until  we  were  fully  persuaded  in  our  own  minds. 


XI]       THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY     127 

A  period  was  fixed  during  which  time  we  were  to  seek  Divine 
guidance.  I  had  always  entertained  very  strong  views  as  to  the 
sanctity  of  such  engagements,  views  which  W.  considered  very 
strict.  I  regard  a  betrothal  as  a  most  sacred  act.  That  having 
once  mutually  decided  on  an  engagement  to  be  terminated  with 
marriage,  it  was  a  very  serious  offence  against  God,  and  against 
the  human  heart,  for  any  violation  of  such  promises  to  take 
place. 

I  made  W.  understand  what  my  views  were,  and  refused 
what  would  be  deemed  even  the  most  trifling  familiarities  be- 
tween young  people  until  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  and  decided 
on  the  propriety  of  our  future  union. 

This  made  the  matter  more  serious  still,  and  again  he  went 
forth  to  seek  for  advice  from  those  who  knew  me,  and  to  pray 
that  God  would  show  him  whether  in  the  peculiar  circumstances 
in  which  he  was  placed  it  was  His  will  that  the  union  should 
take  place.  I  said  as  to  time  I  had  no  choice.  If  we  never  are 
married,  very  well.  If  circumstances  never  justified  it,  I  am 
perfectly  content  that  we  should  remain  single  for  ever;  but, 
single  or  married  in  body,  we  must  be  perfectly  united  in  heart. 
Amongst  the  ways  in  which  W.  sought  to  obtain  light  was  the 
old-fashioned  one  of  opening  the  Bible  and  receiving  the  first 
passage  on  which  the  eye  fell  as  the  interpretation  of  God's 
pleasure,  and  this  instance  was  rather  curious,  his  eye  falling 
upon,. 

"  And  the  two  sticks  became  one  in  my  hand." 

However,  this  controversy  could  not  go  on  for  ever  with 
two  such  hearts  as  ours,  and  consequently  we  came  to  the 
conclusion  and  covenanted  that  come  weal  or  woe  we  would 
sail  life's  stormy  seas  together,  and  on  our  knees  we  plighted 
our  troth  before  the  Lord. 

We  have  heard  a  deal  of  criticism  on  our  principles  of 
marriage  in  the  Salvation  Army,  but  here  was  a  marriage 
virtually  contracted  on  the  same  principles,  foreshadowing  all 
that  we  have  embodied  in  our  S.  A.  form  of  marriage.  The 
purpose  and  end  of  it,  I  am  sure,  was  the  glory  of  God  and  the 
highest  interests  of  the  human  race.  .  .  . 

The  reality  of  the  lovers'  struggle,  the  stern  force  and 
rigid  honesty  of  Vk^hat  they  describe  as  their  "  controversy," 
may  be  seen  from  the  letters  of  Catherine  Mumford,  which 
were  written  to  William  Booth  in  those  early  weeks  of  their 
intimacy.  This  controversy,  as  the  reader  v/ill  have  seen, 
turned  on  the  question  whether  they  ought  to  consider 
themselves  as  engaged,  or  whether  they  should  rest  content 
with  a  Platonic  friendship. 


128  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        Ichap. 

My  dearest  William  —  The  evening  is  beautifully  serene 
and  tranquil,  according  sweetly  with  the  feelings  of  my  soul. 
The  whirlwind  is  past  and  the  succeeding  calm  is  in  proportion 
to  its  violence.  Your  letter  —  your  visit  have  hushed  its  last 
murmurs  and  stilled  every  vibration  of  my  throbbing  heart- 
strings. All  is  well.  I  feel  it  is  right,  and  I  praise  God  for 
the  satisfying  conviction. 

Most  gladly  does  my  soul  respond  to  your  invitation  to  give 
myself  afresh  to  Him,  and  to  strive  to  link  myself  closer  to  you, 
by  rising  more  into  the  image  of  the  Lord.  The  nearer  our 
assimilation  to  Jesus,  the  more  perfect  and  heavenly  our  union. 
Our  hearts  are  now  indeed  one,  so  one  that  division  would  be 
more  bitter  than  death.  But  I  am  satisfied  that  our  union  may 
become,  if  not  more  complete,  more  divine,  and,  consequently, 
capable  of  yielding  a  larger  amount  of  pure  unmingled  bliss. 

The  thought  of  walking  through  life  perfectly  united,  to- 
gether enjoying  its  sunshine  and  battling  its  storms,  by  softest 
sympathy  sharing  every  smile  and  every  tear,  and  with  thorough 
unanimity  performing  all  its  momentous  duties,  is  to  me  ex- 
quisite happiness ;  the  highest  earthly  bliss  I  desire.  And  who 
can  estimate  the  glory  to  God,  and  the  benefit  to  man,  accruing 
from  a  life  spent  in  such  harmonious  eflfort  to  do  His  zvillf 
Such  unions,  alas !  are  so  rare  that  we  seldom  see  an  exempli- 
fication of  the  divine  idea  of  marriage. 

If,  indeed,  we  are  the  disciples  of  Christ,  '*  in  the  world  we 
shall  have  tribulation  " ;  but  in  Him  and  in  each  other  we  may 
have  peace.  If  God  chastises  us  by  afifliction,  in  either  mind, 
body,  or  circumstances,  it  will  only  be  a  mark  of  our  disciple- 
ship  ;  and  if  borne  equally  by  us  both,  the  blow  shall  not  only 
be  softened,  but  sanctified,  and  we  shall  be  able  to  rejoice  that 
we  are  permitted  to  drain  the  bitter  cup  together.  Satisfied 
that  in  our  souls  there  flows  a  deep  undercurrent  of  pure 
affection,  we  will  seek  grace  to  bear  with  the  bubbles  which 
may  rise  on  the  surface,  or  wisdom  so  to  burst  them  as  to 
increase  the  depth,  and  accelerate  the  onward  flow  of  the  pure 
stream  of  love,  till  it  reaches  the  river  which  proceeds  out  of  the 
Throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb,  and  mingles  in  glorious  har- 
mony with  the  love  of  Heaven. 

The  more  you  lead  me  up  to  Christ  in  all  things,  the  more 
highly  shall  I  esteem  you ;  and,  if  it  be  possible  to  love  you 
more  than  I  do  now,  the  more  shall  I  love  you.  You  are  always 
present  in  my  thoughts. 

My  dEx\r  William  —  I  ought  to  be  happy  after  enjoying 
your  company  all  the  evening.  But  now  you  are  gone  and  I  am 
alone,  I  feel  a  regret  consonant  with  the  height  of  my  enjoy- 
ment. How  wide  the  difiference-  between  heavenly  and  earthly 
joys !     The  former  satiate  the  soul  and  reproduce  themselves. 


XI]       THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY     129 

The  latter,  after  planting  in  our  soul  the  seeds  of  future  griefs 
and  cares,  take  their  flight  and  leave  an  aching  void. 

How  wisely  God  has  apportioned  our  cup.  He  does  not  give 
us  all  sweetness,  lest  we  should  rest  satisfied  with  earth  ;  nor 
all  bitterness,  lest  we  grow  weary  and  disgusted  with  our  lot. 
But  He  wisely  mixes  the  two,  so  that  if  we  drink  the  one,  we 
must  also  taste  the  other.  And,  perhaps,  a  time  is  coming  when 
we  shall  see  that  the  proportions  of  this  cup  of  human  joy  and 
sorrow  are  more  equally  adjusted  than  we  now  imagine  —  that 
souls  capable  of  enjoyments  above  the  vulgar  crowd  can  also 
feel  sorrow  in  comparison  with  which  theirs  is  but  like  the 
passing  April  cloud  in  contrast  with  the  long  Egyptian 
night.  .  .  . 

But  I  have  rambled  from  what  I  was  about  to  write.  I  fmd 
that  the  pleasure  connected  with  pure,  holy,  sanctified  love 
forms  no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  The  very  fact  of  loving 
invests  the  being  beloved  with  a  thousand  causes  of  care  and 
anxiety,  which,  if  unloved,  would  never  exist.  At  least,  I  find 
it  so.  You  have  caused  me  more  real  anxiety  than  any  other 
earthly  object  ever  did.  Do  you  ask  why?  I  have  already 
supplied  you  with  an  answer !  .  .  .  Don't  sit  xip  singing  till 
twelve  o'clock  after  a  hard  day's  work.  Such  things  are  not 
required  by  either  God  or  man ;  and  remember  you  are  not 
your  own ! 

My  dearest  love,  beware  how  you  indulge  that  dangerous 
element  of  character  —  ambition.  Misdirected,  it  will  be  ever- 
lasting ruin  to  yourself  and,  perhaps,  to  me  also.  Oh,  my  love, 
let  nothing  earthly  excite  it,  let  not  self-aggrandisement  fire  it. 
Fix  it  on  the  Throne  of  the  Eternal,  and  let  it  find  the  realiza- 
tion of  its  loftiest  aspirations  in  the  promotion  of  His  glory,  and 
it  shall  be  consummated  with  the  richest  enjoyments  and 
brightest  glories  of  God's  own  Heaven.  Those  that  honour 
Him  He  will  honour,  and  to  them  who  thus  seek  His  glory 
will  He  give  to  rule  over  the  nations,  and  even  to  judge  angels, 
who,  through  a  perverted  ambition,  the  exaltation  of  self  in- 
stead of  God,  have  fallen  from  their  allegiance  and  overcast 
their  eternity  with  the  blackness  of  darkness  for  ever. 

I  feel  your  danger.  I  could  write  sheets  on  the  subject,  but 
my  full  soul  shall  pour  out  its  desires  to  that  God  who  has 
promised  to  supply  all  your  need.  In  my  estimation,  faithful- 
ness is  an  indispensable  ingredient  of  all  true  friendship.  How 
much  more  of  a  love  like  mine !  You  say,  "  Reprove  —  advise 
me  as  you  think  necessary."  I  have  no  reproofs,  my  dearest, 
but  I  have  cautions,  and  I  know  you  will  consider  them. 

Do  assure  me,  my  own  dear  William,  that  no  lack  of  energy 
or  effort  on  your  part  shall  hinder  the  improvement  of  those 


130  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

talents  God  has  intrusted  to  you,  and  which  He  holds  you 
responsible  to  improve  to  the  uttermost.  Your  duty  to  God, 
to  His  Church,  to  me,  to  yourself,  demands  as  much.  If  you 
really  see  no  prospect  of  studying,  then,  I  think,  in  the  highest 
interest  of  the  future,  you  ought  not  to  stay. 

I  have  been  revolving  in  my  mind  all  day  which  will  be  your 
wisest  plan  under  present  circumstances,  and  it  appears  to  me 
as  you  are  to  preach  nearly  every  evening,  and  at  places  so  wide 
apart,  it  will  be  better  to  do  as  the  friends  advise,  and  stop  all 
night  where  you  preach.  Do  not  attempt  to  walk  long  distances 
after  the  meetings.  With  a  little  management  and  a  good  deal 
of  determination,  I  think  you  might  accomplish  even  more  that 
way  as  to  study  than  by  going  home  each  night.  Do  not  be 
over-anxious  about  the  future.  Spalding  will  not  be  your  final 
destination,  if  you  make  the  best  of  your  ability. 

Catherine  Mumford's  Reminiscences  -^  tell  the  rest  of  the 
story : 

Life  now  to  me  assumed  altogether  another  aspect.  I  have 
already  intimated  the  very  high  estimate  I  had  formed  of  the 
importance  of  the  position  to  which  I  now  seemed  fairly  des- 
tined. The  idea  of  the  possibility  of  becoming  a  wife  and  a 
mother  filled  my  life  with  new  responsibilities,  but  the  thought 
of  becoming  a  Minister's  wife  made  the  whole  appear  increas- 
ingly serious.  I  assumed  in  imagination  all  these  responsibil- 
ities right  away,  even  as  though  they  had  already  come,  and  at 
once  set  myself,  with  all  my  might,  to  prepare  to  meet  them. 
I  added  to  the  number  of  my  studies,  enlarged  the  scope  of  my 
reading,  wrote  notes  and  made  comments  on  all  the  sermons 
and  lectures  that  appeared  at  all  worthy  of  the  trouble,  started 
to  learn  shorthand  in  order  that  I  might  more  readily  and  fully 
correspond  with  W.,  and  in  other  ways  stirred  up  the  gift  that 
was  in  me  to  fit  myself  the  better  to  serve  God  and  my  gen- 
eration. 

I  think  this  would  have  been  one  of  the  happiest  periods 
of  my  life  but  for  the  gloomy  view  W.  was  apt  to  take  of  our 
circumstances.  In  looking  back  on  this  time,  I  often  think  of 
the  saying  that  I  have  heard  W.  quote  in  these  later  times,  that 
three-fourths  of  the  troubles  that  cause  us  the  greatest  suffering 
never  happen.  Or,  in  other  words,  had  we  more  perfectly 
learnt  the  divine  lesson,  "  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof,"  the  realisation  of  this  truth  might  have  modified 
many  of  the  gloomy  forebodings  which  marred  the  beginning 
of  our  acquaintance. 

I  was  very  delicate ;  in  fact,  little  better  than  a  confirmed 

^  Some  autobiographical  notes  of  a  more  or  less  fragmentary  nature 
which  were  never  published. 


XI]       THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY     131 

invalid,  and  he  was  afraid  that  my  strength  would  never  stand 
the  strain  and  hardship  involved  in  such  a  life  as  I  imagined 
that  of  a  Preacher's  wife  ought  to  be.  Moreover,  his  pathway 
seemed  so  hedged  in  and  blocked  up,  and  he  could  not  see  how 
he  was  going  to  reach  any  ministerial  position  which  would 
enable  him  to  obtain  for  me  that  care  and  help  without  which 
he  could  not  see  how  it  was  possible  for  me  to  live  in  any  degree 
of  comfort ;  and  over  and  over  again  he  would  say  that  he  would 
never  take  me  into  any  position  in  which  I  should  be  likely  to 
be  less  comfortable  and  cared  for  than  in  my  own  home. 

The  discipline  of  the  Reform  Society  was  very  unsatisfactory 
to  us  both,  in  denying  the  Minister  what  we  considered  was  his 
proper  authority.  The  tendency  of  human  nature  to  go  to 
extremes  found  ample  illustration  in  this  particular.  From 
making  the  Minister  everything,  treating  him  with  the  pro- 
foundest  respect,  receiving  his  word  as  law,  putting  him  almost 
in  the  place  of  God  Himself  —  they  went  over  to  regard  him 
as  nothing,  denying  him  every  shadow  of  authority,  and  only 
allowing  him  to  preside  at  their  meetings  when  elected  for  this 
purpose,  and  speaking  of  him  in  public  and  private  as  their 
"  hired  "  preacher. 

In  W.'s  case  it  was  worse  than  this.  The  leader  of  the  local 
movement  with  which  he  was  connected,  not  only  denied  him 
anything  like  the  position  of  a  leader,  but  refused  to  give  him 
reasonable  opportunities  for  preaching.  They  simply  dealt 
with  him  as  a  cypher,  doubtless  feeling  that,  did  they  give  him 
any  sort  of  a  position,  he  would  earn  for  himself  the  leadership 
which  they  were  determined  to  keep  to  themselves. 

We  both  saw  that  these  relations  were  too  strained  and  un- 
natural to  last  very  long;  accordingly,  at  the  end  of  the  three 
months,  for  which  Mr.  R.  had  engaged  him  in  the  first  instance, 
and  for  which  he  remunerated  him  out  of  his  own  purse,  the 
connection  was  dissolved. 

The  lookout  now  was  gloomy  enough,  not  that  I  was  any  way 
anxious  about  it.  I  felt  quite  certain  that  God  would  interfere 
on  our  behalf,  and  that  W.  possessed  gifts  which  would  only 
have  to  be  exercised  to  become  known,  and  which  being  known 
would  win  for  him  all  those  opportunities  for  usefulness  for 
which  his  soul  so  strongly  yearned. 

It  was  at  this  time,  when  the  way  to  the  Ministry  seemed 
totally  closed  in  the  Methodist  direction,  that  W.'s  attention 
was  turned  to  the  Congregational  Church.  I  think  this  was 
my  doing ;  indeed,  I  know  it  was  ;  but,  until  he  came  to  this  dead 
stop,  he  would  never  hear  of  it,  and  even  now  his  difficulties 
appeared  almost  insurmountable.  To  leave  Methodism  seemed 
an  impossibility.  His  love  for  it  at  that  time  amounted  almost 
to  idolatry.   .   .  . 

Although  I  could  sympathize  with  all  this,  and  had  a  fair 


132  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

share  of  love  for  the  Church  to  which  I  also  owed  much  and  in 
which  I  had  experienced  a  great  deal  of  blessing,  still,  I  had 
nothing  like  his  blind  attachment.  For  one  reason,  I  had  not 
been  actively  engaged.  Mine  had  been  more  the  position  of  a 
spectator;  and,  moreover,  I  argued  that,  once  settled  in  a 
Congregational  pulpit,  he  could  impart  into  his  services  and 
meetings  all  that  was  good  and  hearty  and  soul-saving  in 
Methodism ;  at  least,  I  thought  he  could,  and  consequently,  I 
pressed  him  very  strongly  to  seek  an  open  door  for  the  exercise 
of  his  Ministry  among  the  Independents. 

He  was  slow  to  accept  my  counsel.  He  had  formed  a  very 
lofty  notion  of  the  intellectual  and  literary  status  of  the  Body, 
and  was  fearful  that  he  was  not  equal  in  these  respects  to  meet 
what  would  be  required  of  him.  But  I  was  just  as  confident 
as  he  was  fearful.  I  felt  sure  that  all  that  was  wanted  by  him 
was  a  sphere,  and  that  once  gained,  I  saw  no  difficulty  in  his 
being  able  to  organize  a  church  of  workers,  and  make  them  into 
Methodists  in  spirit  and  practice,  whether  they  were  such  in 
government  or  no. 

Perhaps  I  was  very  simple  in  these  notions ;  I  had  little  or 
no  experience  at  that  time  as  to  the  difficulty  of  over-ruling  the 
prejudices  and  changing  the  customs  which  had  been  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation.  However,  I  was  young 
and  sanguine,  and  already  had  come  to  have  considerable  faith 
in  the  enthusiastic  energy  and  devotion  of  my  beloved,  and  I 
thought  if  he  could  once  get  into  the  leadership  anywhere,  he 
could  carry  the  people  whithersoever  he  would. 

With  such  reasonings  as  these,  and  seeing  that  there  was  no 
other  way  by  which  he  could  reach  the  sphere  to  which  his 
soul  believed  God  had  called  him,  he  gave  in,  and  resolved  to 
seek  an  open  door  for  the  preaching  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  the 
bringing  lost  sinners  to  God  amongst  the  Congregationalists. 

I  cannot  very  well  remember  how  he  went  about  seeking  this 
open  door.  We  had  not,  so  far  as  I  remember,  a  single 
friend  who  had  any  influence  either  with  the  Independents  or 
with  any  other  Christian  Church  as  far  as  that  goes.  We  at 
first  cut  ourselves  off  from  the  friendships  of  our  yovith  when 
we  left  the  Wesleyans,  and  now  we  had  turned  our  backs  upon 
the  little  handful  with  whom  we  had  taken  sides  amongst  the 
Reformers ;  consequently,  we  had  no  one  to  give  us  any  intro- 
duction, nay,  not  even  to  give  us  a  word  of  counsel. 

At  that  time  the  most  influential  man  among  the  Noncon- 
formists in  London  was  a  Dr.  Campbell.  He  was  the  editor  of 
a  religious  newspaper  which  was  regarded  as  the  principal 
organ  of  the  Denomination,  known  as  The  British  Banner,  to- 
gether with  one  or  two  other  magazines.  Dr.  Campbell  was 
mighty  in  controversy,  and  his  paper  had  achieved  no  little 
notoriety  in  this  line. 


xiJ       THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY     133 

Beyond  this,  we  knew  nothing  about  him. 
I  pushed  \V.  up  to  go  and  see  him,  and  after  some  of  that 
hesitancy  which  we  feel  for  a  task  when  our  heart  is  not  in  it, 
he  screwed  up  his  courage  and  called  at  the  Dr.'s  residence, 
and  asked  to  see  the  great  man.  The  Dr.  received  him  most 
kindly,  made  him  tell  the  story  of  his  life,  and  then  told  him 
that  he  liked  him,  and  would  help  him  to  the  utmost  of  his 
ability.  He  gave  him  some  letters  of  introduction,  and  finally 
brought  him  before  the  Committee  for  Home  Mission  Work, 
when,  after  various  inquiries,  theological,  doctrinal,  and  other- 
wise, it  was  decided  that  he  should  be  accepted  and  sent  to  the 
Training  College  which  was  located  somewhere  out  of  London. 

In  addition  to  W.'s  difficulty  in  regard  to  Methodist  Govern- 
ment, there  rose  up  a  still  more  formidable  one,  that  of 
doctrine. 

We  knew  that  the  basis  of  the  Congregational  theology  was 
Calvinism.  We  were  both  saturated,  as  it  were,  with  the 
broadest,  deepest,  and  highest  opinions  as  to  the  extent  of  the 
love  of  God  and  the  benefit  fiowing  from  the  sacrifice  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  were  verily  extremists  on  this  question.  The 
idea  of  anything  like  the  selection  of  one  individual  to  enjoy 
the  blessedness  of  the  Divine  favour  for  ever  and  ever,  and  the 
reprobation  of  another  to  sufifer  all  the  pains  and  penalties  of 
everlasting  damnation,  irrespective  of  any  choice,  conduct,  or 
character  on  their  part,  seemed  to  us  to  be  an  outrage  on  all 
that  was  fair  and  righteous,  to  say  nothing  about  benevolent. 
We  not  only  thought  this,  but  felt  it.  On  this,  at  least,  we 
were  in  perfect  harmony. 

Now  the  knowledge  that  this  doctrine  was  maintained  by 
the  Congregationalists  in  general,  although  we  knew  that  it 
was  not  very  generally  preached,  it  being  only  here  and  there 
that  we  ever  heard  it  mentioned  in  the  popular  addresses  of  the 
Congregational  preachers  of  that  day  —  that  fading  away  from 
the  public  view  of  that  doctrine,  which  is  almost  complete  in 
our  time,  had  already  commenced  —  still,  this  phantom  haunted 
W.  continually,  and  one  of  the  first  questions  he  asked  Dr. 
Campbell  in  the  interview  of  which  I  have  already  spoken  was 
whether  he  would  be  expected  to  preach  any  other  doctrine 
than  the  universal  love  of  God.  The  Dr.  assured  him  that  he 
would  not  be  expected  to  preach  any  other  doctrine  than  that 
which  he  honestly  believed,  saying  to  him  most  emphatically, 
"  Now  you  must  go  to  College  and  study  over  your  Bible,  and 
what  you  find  there  you  must  go  out  and  preach,  and  that  will 
be  all  that  Independents  will  require  from  you." 

This  assurance  was  repeated  to  him  again  in  the  intercourse 
into  which  he  was  brought  with  other  leading  Ministers  of  this 
Church. 

Judge  of  his  surprise,  after  having  passed  his  examination, 


134  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

and  all  had  been  fixed  up  for  his  admission  into  the  Institution, 
on  being  informed  by  Dr.  George  Smith  as  the  mouthpiece  of 
the  Committee  that  he  would  be  expected  to  conform  his  views 
on  this  question  to  the  Calvinistic  theory.  The  Dr.  said,  "  The 
Committee  has  shown  you  great  favour  arranging  for  you  to 
go  into  training,  although  not  even  a  member  of  an  Independ- 
ent Church,  and  holding  doctrinal  views  opposed  to  those  of  the 
Committee ;  but  on  examination  at  the  close  of  the  first  term, 
the  Committee  will  certainly  expect  that  you  will  be  more 
nearly  in  harmony  with  their  opinions,"  at  the  same  time 
recommending  an  immediate  perusal  of  Booth's  Reign  of  Grace 
and  Payne's  Divine  Sovereignty. 

This  was  a  tremendous  drop  for  W.  With  great  searchings 
of  heart  and  innumerable  misgivings  he  had  managed  to  get  so 
far.  His  views  on  church  government  had  not  been  based  upon 
any  particular  estimate  of  its  importance,  apart  from  the  great 
purpose  which  it  was  intended  to  serve.  Even  then  he  was  not 
one  of  those  who  magnify  the  form  at  the  expense  of  the  sub- 
stance, but  was  prepared  to  sacrifice  any  favoured  notions  he 
might  have  entertained  on  this  subject  if  he  could  thereby  have 
secured  the  one  important  end  on  which  his  heart  was  set.  .  .  . 
But  when  it  came  to  a  change  of  doctrine  on  what  was  to  him 
such  a  vital  question,  he  was  completely  staggered.  To  have 
left  him  perfectly  free  was  the  only  reasonable  and  honourable 
course  for  the  Committee  to  have  adopted ;  in  fact,  the  only 
course  that  was  needed  on  behalf  of  the  churches  they  repre- 
sented. Of  what  value  could  a  man  possibly  be  if,  for  the  sake 
of  position,  he  could  deliberately  change  his  views  on  such  a 
vital  topic  as  the  one  in  question? 

Moreover,  a  more  unlikely  course  to  have  attained  their  ends 
could  not  possibly  have  been  taken,  especially  with  W.  If  he 
had  been  left  perfectly  free  to  decide  and  act  accordingly,  as 
Dr.  Campbell  had  assured  him  he  would  be,  the  review  of  the 
controversy  by  him  would  have  been,  I  have  no  doubt,  fairly 
and  faithfully  made ;  .  .  .  not  that  I  expect  it  would  have 
resulted  in  any  change  of  opinion,  still  the  subject  would  have 
been  considered  in  all  its  bearings.  But  as  it  was,  it  was  like 
oiTering  a  bribe,  the  very  thought  of  which  prevented  even  the 
most  superficial  consideration  of  the  subject  in  question,  and 
consequently  most  effectually  served  to  defeat  its  own  purpose. 

However,  W.  shook  hands  with  the  Dr.,  bought  Booth's 
Reign  of  Grace  on  his  way  home,  sat  down  to  read  it,  managed 
to  get  through  some  30  or  40  pages,  threw  it  to  the  other  side 
of  the  room,  decided  that  he  could  never  bring  his  mind  to  the 
views  therein  laid  down,  and  so  closed  the  door  to  the  Training 
Institution,  and  to  the  Independents.  He  then  decided  to  write 
the  Secretary,  thanking  him  for  all  his  kindness,  but  intimating 
that  he  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  altering  his  doctrinal 


XI]       THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  LOVE  STORY     135 

views,  or  of  even  deliberately  setting  to  work  to  prepare  for 
doing  so. 

All  this,  any  one  can  easily  imagine,  was  of  considerable 
interest  to  me.  From  the  moment  of  our  engagement  we  had 
become  one,  and  from  that  hour  to  this  I  don't  think  there  has 
ever  been  any  question  of  importance  concerning  either  our 
principles  or  our  practice  in  which  we  have  not  acted  in  perfect 
harmony. 

I  had  been  made  familiar  with  every  varying  phase  of  the 
question  as  the  negotiations  proceeded.  The  matter  had  been 
undertaken  more  or  less  as  I  have  said  at  my  own  instigation, 
and  I  had  laboured  hard  to  strengthen  W.'s  hands  and  to  pilot 
him  through  the  many  difficulties  that  barred  the  way,  and  now, 
all  at  once,  my  schemes  were  frustrated,  and  my  hopes,  in  that 
direction  at  least,  were  at  an  end,  and  we  were  once  again 
afloat. 

Amongst  other  things,  ways  and  means  demanded  that  W. 
should  do  something.  The  little  store  of  money  with  which  he 
left  business  was  now  exhausted.  The  last  sixpence  he  had  in 
the  world  he  had  given  to  a  poor  girl  dying  of  consumption  the 
day  before  in  the  expectation  of  going  to  the  Training  College 
on  the  following  morning. 

Therefore  it  seemed  desirable  that  some  other  door  should 
open  in  lieu  of  the  one  that  had  so  abruptly  closed. 

As  far  as  we  could  see  no  other  deliverance  was  in  sight, 
and  yet,  dark  as  the  outlook  was,  the  thought  of  going  back  to 
some  business  engagement  was  not  allowed  or  entertained  by 
either  one  of  us.  "  No  retreat "  was  our  motto.  We  must  go 
forward. 

But  how  ?     That  wa-s  the  question.     We  had  not  long  to  wait. 

I  have  already  described  that  as  the  Episcopal  Church 
divides  the  country  into  parishes,  so  Wesleyan  Methodism 
groups  those  places  where  it  operates  into  circuits. 

The  Reform  movement,  so  far  as  it  was  able  to,  followed 
this  line  of  demarcation.  In  some  circuits  the  disruption  was 
comparatively  small,  and  the  dissatisfied  party  found  it  the 
greatest  difficulty  to  maintain  an  existence. 

In  others,  the  Reforming  party  formed  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  body.  This  was  the  case  at  Spalding,  a  small  town  in  the 
south  of  Lincolnshire.  Here  the  great  majority  of  lay 
preachers  and  people  sided  with  the  expelled  Ministers,  and 
were,  in  course  of  time,  by  expulsion  or  from  choice,  separated 
from  the  original  fold,  whereupon  they  formed  themselves  into 
a  Community  consisting  of  Societies  and  lay  Preachers. 

These  Societies  were  separated  by  considerable  distances 
from  each  other,  the  circuit  being  something  like  27  miles 
across.  To  travel  about  amongst  these  Societies,  preaching  to 
them  on  the  week  nights  and  to  transact  the  various  matters  of 


136  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH   [chap.xi] 

business  which  were  essential  to  their  existence  and  extension, 
and  to  perform  the  other  manifold  duties  of  a  Pastor,  a  preacher 
was  required.  Enquiry  for  such  an  one  was  made  by  a  friend 
in  London ;  W.  was  at  once  suggested  by  the  gentleman  to  whom 
the  enquiry  was  made.  As  the  result  the  invitation  was  for- 
warded and  accepted,  and  before  many  days  had  passed  he  was 
duly  installed  in  a  position  in  which,  notwithstanding  some 
considerable  drawbacks,  his  whole  soul  was  in  harmony. 

To  us  this  seemed  a  wonderful  intervention  indeed,  but  not 
more  so  than  numberless  similar  instances  that  followed  in  the 
succeeding  years.  Again  and  again  have  there  been  Red  Seas 
and  Jordans  through  which  we  have  gone  in  safety. 

It  was  on  ,  .  .  day  of  this  year  1852  that  W.  left  me  for 
Spalding. 

This  parting,  although  a  very  simple  matter,  perhaps  appear- 
ing scarcely  worthy  of  notice,  was  nevertheless  a  very  serious 
event  to  me. 

I  don't  know  that  I  need  hesitate  to  say  that  I  loved  W. 
with  all  my  heart.  We  had  been  thrown  very  much  together, 
and  though  the  acquaintance  had  only  extended  some  6  months, 
it  had  been  a  very  intimate  one. 

Parting,  to  me,  had  always  looked  a  very  formidable  sort  of 
thing.  When  a  little  girl,  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I  could  not 
live  as  the  wife  of  a  seafaring  or  military  man,  simply  on  the 
ground  of  separation.  As  a  Salvationist,  I  have  since  learnt 
many  things  and  amongst  others  to  endure  separations  from 
those  I  love  for  the  Kingdom's  sake,  and  on  this  occasion  I 
braced  myself  up.  Although  it  meant  suffering,  yet  I  did  not 
wish  it  otherwise.  The  sacrifice  of  a  present  good  to  secure  a 
greater  in  the  future  had  always  appeared  to  me  to  be  one  of 
the  higher  forms  of  duty;  I  cheerfully  embraced  it  on  this 
occasion. 


CHAPTER  XII 

PURITAN    LOVE-LETTERS 
1852 

Unfortunately,  the  love-letters  of  William  Booth  and 
Catherine  Mumford  are  difficult  to  arrange  in  time  sequence, 
since  the  dates  are  in  many  cases  altogether  omitted  or 
mentioned  only  as  the  day  and  the  month  on  which  they  were 
written;  moreover,  these  documents  suffered  in  the  con- 
fusion which  befell  other  papers,  owing  to  the  migratory  life 
of  the  writers,  and  a  consecutive  dialogue  is  not  to  be  made 
of  those  that  are  available.  Nevertheless,  these  letters 
which  follow^  like  beads  on  a  string,  are  all  connected  on  the 
single  thread  of  the  lovers'  supreme  difficulty.  They  can 
be  read  without  any  bother  as  to  dates,  and  one  is  so  inter- 
ested in  the  narrative,  so  amused  by  the  quaint  style  of  the 
two  writers,  so  charmed,  and  in  some  instances  so  exalted, 
by  the  beauty  of  the  romance,  that  one  steps  over  each 
hiatus  scarcely  conscious  that  a  break  has  occurred. 

The  letters  are  so  spontaneous,  so  unconscious  of  pub- 
lication, so  intimate  and  yet  so  public,  that  they  may  be 
given  in  their  fulness  and  with  scarcely  the  interposition  of 
a  single  comment.  The  reader  will  remember  that  Catherine 
Mumford's  education  w^as  superior  to  William  Booth's,  and 
will,  perhaps,  perceive  a  somewhat  exaggerated  evidence  of 
this  superiority  in  the  letters ;  he  may  also  detect  a  stronger 
and  a  more  able  personality  in  her  love-letters,  a  greater 
vigour  of  mind,  a  much  keener  perception,  and  certainly  a 
profounder  spirituality.  It  is  important,  however,  to  bear 
in  mind  that  from  the  very  first  Catherine  Mumford  recog- 
nized in  William  Booth  a  man  of  destiny,  a  man  of  extraor- 
dinary power,  and  of  almost  matchless  enthusiasm.  She 
looked  up  to  him  as  to  a  superior  force ;  she  realized  that 
he  was  one  whose  character  would  grow  with  life,  whose 
power  would  increase  with  exercise;  if  she  is  superior  to 
him  in  her  letters,  if  she  advises  him,  reproves  him,  instructs 

U7 


138  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

him,  and  even  drives  him,  still  it  is  always  as  one  who  merely 
sees  further  into  futurity,  and  knows  as  a  mother  knows  the 
strength  into  which  her  child  will  grow.  Catherine  Mum- 
ford  lived  to  be  called  "  the  Mother  of  the  Salvation 
Army";  she  was  also  the  mother  of  the  man  who  married 
her. 

Bergsonism  has  here  a  most  admirable  example  of  its 
thesis  that  the  intellect  is  merely  a  weapon  forged  by  life 
for  its  use,  that  life  itself  is  superior  to  mental  accomplish- 
ment. One  must  also  consider  that  while  Catherine  Mum- 
ford  had  leisure  on  her  hands,  and  rather  laid  herself  out  at 
this  time  as  a  letter-writer,  William  Booth,  even  in  1852, 
was  a  man  incessantly  and  exhaustively  engaged  in  work 
which  seemed  to  him  infinitely  more  urgent  than  the  writing 
of  love-letters.  His  love-story  is  only  a  part  of  his  life- 
story,  and  his  life-story  is  as  much  a  psychological  study 
of  development  along  one  single  line  of  human  activity 
as  an  epic  of  religious  enthusiasm. 

Here  follow  letters  which  cover  the  greater  part  of  1852, 
prior  to  William  Booth's  departure  for  Spalding,  and  which 
are  chiefly  concerned  with  the  struggle  of  these  two  souls  to 
know  the  will  of  God  in  their  desperate  situation: 

William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

My  dear  Friend  —  I  promised  you  a  line.  I  write.  I  know 
no  more  than  I  knew  yesterday.  I  offered  as  you  know  full 
well  then  and  there  to  make  the  engagement.  You  declined  on 
what  without  doubt  are  good  grounds,  but  still  I  cannot  do 
more.  .  .  .  You  know  the  inmost  feelings  of  my  heart,  and  I 
can  say  no  more  than  I  have  not,  as  I  could  have  wished,  seen 
anything  striking  to  intimate  the  will  of  God.  If  my  circum- 
stances had  not  been  so  benighted  I  might  not  have  desired 
this,  but  I  feel  the  importance  of  the  affair,  if  I  feel  nothing 
else. 

Now  understand  me.  As  I  said  yesterday,  I  offer  now  a 
step  in  the  dark.  I  will  promise  you  anything  you  wish  for 
your  oivn  dear  sake,  but  mind,  my  feelings  are  still  the  same. 
But  the  tie  shall  be  as  sacred  as  though  made  under  the  influ- 
ence of  sunnier  feelings  and  in  prospect  of  brighter  days.  You 
can  write  me  your  mind.  I  do  not  wish  to  trouble  you  for  a 
long  letter.  Put  down  in  a  line  what  you  think.  If  you  de- 
cline as  yesterday,  I  ask  the  favour  of  being  allowed  to  keep 
as  secret  as  my  Bible  and  as  full  to  me  of  inspiration,  and  as 


xnj  PURITAN  LOVE-LETTERS  139 

sacred  as  my  soul's  inmost  feelings,  the  notes  I  already  have  in 
your  writing.  As  you  wish  you  can  keep  or  burn  mine.  I 
could  almost  trust  you  with  the  keeping  of  the  Title  Deeds 
of  my  soul's  salvation,  so  highly  do  I  esteem  your  character. 
Perhaps  I  write  wildly.     Excuse  me.     I  began  calm. 

After  this  is  ended,  this  awful  controversy,^  I  shall  call  on 
you  again.  If  you  accept  what  I  have  stated,  I  will  come 
Saturday.  //  not,  I  shall  call  as  a  friend  in  the  course  of  a 
few  days  and  show  you  how  I  bear  the  matter.  If  it  be  of 
man,  if  it  be  wrong,  it  will  pass  forgotten  away.  If  it  be  of 
God  He  will  still  bring  it  to  pass. 

All  I  fear  is  your  suffering  and  your  mother's  condemnation. 
But  I  cannot  help  it.  Believe  every  word  I  have  here  said.  If 
you  accept,  we  are  henceforth  and  for  ever  one.  If  you  decline, 
the  matter  must  be  forgotten.  I  leave  you  in  the  hands  of  my 
God. —  I  am,  Yours,  etc.,  William  Booth. 

Miss  C.  Mumford. 

William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

Walworth. 
(Undated.) 

My  dear  Friend  —  You  may  perhaps  deem  me  to  be  taking 
another  step  in  the  wrong  direction,  but  I  must,  after  the  very 
abrupt  manner  in  which  we  parted  last  evening,  say  a  word. 
I  believe  that  you  think  me  sincere,  and  I  have  only  one  fear, 
that  is,  that  you  will  make  yourself  ill.  If  you  do,  and  I  hear 
of  it,  it  will  drive  me  into  delirium.  My  mind  is  made  up. 
My  hopes  are  set  on  things  below  of  the  same  nature  as  things 
above.  My  heart  prays  that  His  will  may  be  done  on  earth 
as  it  is  done  in  Heaven.  .  .  . 

How  clear  and  distinct  in  answer  to  prayer  did  God  make 
the  path  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fletcher.  With  them  it  was  not 
the  impulse  of  passion,  but  the  clear  unmistakable  teaching  of 
Providence.  I  would  that  it  should  be  so  in  our  experience. 
Be  assured  that  your  reasoning  on  the  subject  is  not  forgotten. 
I  remember  your  every  word.  But  hear  me  again  and  I  will 
be  silent. 

1.  Such  a  matter  never  could  be  arranged  without  in  some 
way  transpiring,  which  would,  I  conceive,  injure  my  usefulness. 

2.  It  never  could  be  without  inducing  me  to  occupy  time, 
every  moment  of  which  ought  to  be  taken  up  with  study. 

3.  I  have  no  present  probability  of  making  my  circumstances 
such  that  I  can  ask  you  to  share  my  home. 

4.  I  should  feel  such  a  powerful  earthly  bond  taking  up  my 

^  This  is  the  "controversy"  referred  to  in  the  previous  chapter,  as  to 
whether  the  lovers  should  make  a  regular  engagement  or  turn  their 
affection  into  a  Platonic  friendship. 


I40  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

feelings  and  drawing  off  my  heart  from  entire  and  complete 
devotion  to  God. 

5.  God  has  of  late  been  satisfying  me  with  Himself,  and  I 
should  fear  setting  up  or  creating  another  god,  especially  seeing 
that  He  has  placed  me  in  a  position  that  my  heart  has  so  long 
desired  and  given  me  every  comfort  I  wish. 

6.  Moreover,  when  I  ponder  over  the  salvation  He  has  been 
working  out  for  me,  saving  me  from  peculiar  temptations  to 
which  I  have  been  prone  —  and  the  darkness  that  hangs  around 
me,  etc.,  I  feel  an  involuntary  shudder  creep  over  me  at  the 
thought  of  an  engagement.  ... 

I  need  not  say  the  high  place  your  character  and  disposition 
have  in  my  esteem.  I  need  not  say  how  I  regret,  for  your  sake, 
that  I  ever  set  foot  in  your  home.  I  need  not  say  that  the  high 
estimation  your  mother  has  for  you  led  her,  I  conceive,  to  take 
a  prejudicial  view  of  my  conduct  and  to  make  remarks  which 
were  unmerited  and  unjust,  and  calculated  to  wrong  my  soul. 

But  it  is  over  now.  I  am  resigned  to  the  will  of  God.  I 
shall  endeavour  to  pursue  the  path  of  duty.  .  .  . 

In  the  meantime,  let  us  give  ourselves  to  God,  fix  our  affec- 
tions all  on  Christ,  and  seek  to  do  His  will.  Your  kindness  to 
me  I  need  not  refer  to.  I  have  indeed  been  grateful  for  it,  and 
felt  indeed  how  undeserved  it  was. 

May  God  bless  and  prosper  you  temporally  and  spiritually, 
and  may  He  make  His  will  known  and  evident  so  that  you  may 
see  it  and  understand  it.  Whatever  you  do,  try  to  save  men, 
to  bless  the  world,  and  to  preach  Christ.  .  .  .  With  many 
prayers, —  I  remain,  your  sincere  and  affectionate  friend, 

William  Booth. 
Miss  Mumford. 


William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

Walford. 
My  dear  Friend  —  Yours  has  just  come  to  hand.  My 
mother's  note  preceded  it,  imploring  me  to  do  nothing  rashly, 
fearing  my  accustomed  impetuosity,  my  feeling  gaining  the 
mastery  over  the  calm  teaching  of  reason ;  as  a  matter  of 
course,  she  is  aware  that  she  cannot  further  than  this  advise 
me,  not  knowing  you  personally ;  she  assures  me  that  she  has 
laid  the  matter  before  God  as  requested,  and  that  the  only  im- 
pression on  her  mind  in  answer  to  such  a  prayer  is,  that  ere 
such  an  important  step  be  taken  I  should  consider  long,  re- 
minding me  in  conclusion  that  once  a  long  time  back  she  spoke 
zviscly  to  me  on  the  same  subject,^  but  at  the  same  time  declar- 
ing that  she  will  acquiesce  in  any  decision  at  which  I  may 

1  This  must  refer,  one  thinks,  to  the  love  affair  in  Nottingham. 


XII]  PURITAN  LOVE-LETTERS  141 

arrive;  this  is  all  I  could  possibly  expect,  all  I  desire  at  her 
hands.  .  .  . 

I  need  not  recapitulate  my  doubts,  only  that  every  day  seems 
to  blacken  them  and  make  them  more  worthy  of  consideration ; 
I  need  not  say  here  how  highly  I  judge  of  you  and  how  high  in 
my  estimation  your  virtuous  soul  I  rank ;  I  need  not  say  that 
I  have  deemed  and  still  do  deem  every,  even  the  minutest,  of 
your  actions  and  words  spotless  and  without  blemish,  that  is, 
in  my  eyes ;  I  need  not  tell  you  that  I  mean  Christ  and  a  union 
in  Heaven,  and  that  my  resolutions  are  unbroken  to  live  and 
live  only  for  the  salvation  of  souls  and  the  glory  of  God ;  I  need 
not  urge  you  to  a  more  earnest  searching  out  for  the  beauties 
and  loveliness  of  the  character  of  Jesus ;  I  need  not  exhort  you 
to  entire  consecration  to  His  service  and  His  constant  hallowed 
communion ;  I  would  to  God  that  my  intercourse  with  Him  was 
as  perfect  and  my  resemblance  to  His  image  was  as  divine  as 
your  ozvH.  I  will  to-day  more  earnestly  than  ever  pray  that 
you  may  find  your  all  in  all  in  Him.  I  say  nothing  decisive 
because  I  know  nothing;  I  have  neither  advanced  nor  retro- 
graded from  the  position  I  occupied  when  last  we  met. 

I  intend,  all  well,  visiting  near  Binfield  this  afternoon.  Mr. 
Nye  preaches  there,  I  understand,  to-night.  I  shall  not  be 
there,  or  else  I  might,  I  suppose,  have  had  the  pleasure  of  shak- 
ing hands  with  you.  But  we  have  a  committee  at  Walworth. 
I  trust  you  will  have  a  good  night's  rest ;  I  am  grieved  to  hear 
that  you  are  poorly.  My  health  is  good,  tolerably  so.  I  bore 
the  fatigue  of  Sunday  quite  as  well  as  I  could  have  expected. 

With  my  love  to  your  dear  mother  —  that  is,  if  you  com- 
municate this  letter ;  I  do  not  see  why  you  should  not. —  I  re- 
main, affectionately  yours  in  the  Love  of  the  risen,  interceding, 
atoning,  sacrificial,  ever-prevailing  Lamb  of  God, 

William  Booth. 
Miss  Catherine  Mumford. 

Catherine  Mumford  to  William  Booth. 

Brixton, 
Tuesday  night,  May  11,  '52. 
My  dear  Friend —  I  have  been  spreading  your  letter  before 
the  Lord  and  earnestly  pleading  for  a  manifestation  of  His 
will  to  your  mind  in  some  way  or  other,  and  now  I  would  say  a 
few  words  of  comfort  and  encouragement.  My  heart  feels  for 
you  far  beyond  what  I  can  express.  Oh  that  I  knew  how  to 
comfort  you  in  an  indirect  way. 

You  do  grieve  me  by  saying,  "  you  fear  you  have  blocked  up 
every  way  of  being  a  blessing  to  me."     /  tell  you  it  is  not  so; 


142  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

your  kindness  and  character  will  ever  give  weight  to  your  ad- 
vice and  teaching,  and  create  a  sympathy  with  your  prayers 
which  cannot  fail  to  benefit  me.  If  you  wish  to  avoid  giving  me 
pain  don't  condemn  yourself.  I  feel  sure  God  does  not  condemn 
you,  and  if  you  could  look  into  my  heart  you  would  see  how 
far  I  am  from  such  a  feeling.  Don't  pore  over  the  past.  Let 
it  all  go.  Your  desire  is  to  do  the  will  of  God,  and  He  will 
guide  you.  Never  mind  who  frowns,  if  God  smiles.  Though 
you  are  surrounded  by  a  host  of  foes  He  is  able  to  deliver  and 
He  zvill  deliver,  only  trust  in  Him  and  don't  be  afraid;  the 
darkness  and  gloom  that  hangs  about  your  path  shall  all  flee 
away.  When  you  are  tried  you  shall  come  forth  as  gold !  The 
words  gloom,  melancholy,  and  despair  lacerate  my  heart. 
Don't  give  way  to  such  feelings  for  a  moment.  God  loves  you. 
He  will  sustain  you.  The  thought  that  I  should  increase  your 
perplexity  and  cause  you  any  suffering  is  almost  intolerable. 
Oh  that  we  had  never  seen  each  other.  Do  try  to  forget  me,  so 
far  as  the  remembrance  would  injure  your  usefulness  or  spoil 
your  peace.  If  I  have  no  alternative  but  to  oppose  the  will  of 
God  or  trample  on  the  desolations  of  my  own  heart,  my  choice 
is  made.  "  Thy  will  be  done  "  is  my  constant  cry.  I  care  not 
for  myself,  but  oh  if  I  cause  you  to  err  I  shall  never  be  happy 
again.  Don't,  I  beseech  you,  take  any  step  without  some  evi- 
dence satisfactory  to  your  own  mind  of  the  will  of  God;  think 
nothing  about  me  ;  I  will  resist  to  the  uttermost.  "  I  can  do  all 
things  through  Christ  strengthening  me."  I  do  continually 
pray  for  you ;  surely  God  must  answer  our  prayers  when  He 
sees  it  is  our  one  desire  to  do  His  will.  Let  us  expect  an  an- 
swer ;  perhaps  our  faith  is  deficient.  ...  —  Yours  affectionately, 

Catherine. 

Catherine  Mum  ford  to  William  Booth. 

Brixton, 
May  13,  '52. 
My  dear  Friend  —  I  have  read  and  re-read  your  note,  and  I 
fear  you  did  not  fully  understand  my  difficulty.  It  was  not  cir- 
cumstances ;  I  thought  I  had  fully  satisfied  you  on  that  point. 
I  thought  you  felt  sure  that  a  bright  prospect  could  not  allure 
me  nor  a  dark  one  affright  me,  if  we  are  only  one  in  heart.  My 
difficulty,  my  only  reason  for  wishing  to  defer  the  engagement 
was,  that  you  might  feel  satisfied  in  your  own  mind  that  the 
step  is  right.  To  cause  you  to  err  would  cost  me  far  more 
suffering  than  anything  else.  I  have  deeply  pondered  over  all 
your  words  at  our  last  interview,  especially  the  objections 
which  you  so  honourably  confessed  had  influenced  your  mind, 
and  I  dare  not  enter  into  so  solemn  an  engagement  till  you  can 
assure  me  that  you  feel  I  am  in  every  way  suited  to  make  you 


XII]  PURITAN  LOVE-LETTERS  143 

happy  and  that  you  are  satisfied  the  step  is  not  opposed  to  the 
will  of  God. 

You  say  if  your  circumstances  were  not  so  blighted  you 
could  not  desire  so  striking  an  indication  of  God's  will.  I 
answer  if  you  are  satisfied  of  His  will  irrespective  of  circum- 
stances, let  circumstances  go,  and  let  us  be  one,  come  w-hat  will ; 
but  if  there  is  anything  in  me  which  you  fear,  anything  you 
think  would  mar  your  complctcst  happiness,  banish  the  thought 
of  an  union  for  ever,  and  let  us  regard  each  other  as  true  and 
tried  friends ;  but  if  you  feel  satisfied  on  these  two  points  — 
first,  that  the  step  is  not  opposed  to  the  will  of  God,  and,  sec- 
ondly, that  I  am  calculated  to  make  you  happy,  come  on  Sat- 
urday evening,  and  on  our  knees  before  God  let  us  give  our- 
selves afresh  to  Him  and  to  each  other  for  His  sake,  consecrate 
our  whole  selves  to  His  service  for  Him  to  live  and  die.  When 
this  is  done  what  have  we  to  do  with  the  future  ?  —  we  and  all 
our  concerns  are  in  His  hands,  under  His  all-wise  and  gracious 
providence. 

I  wish  you  could  see  into  my  heart  for  a  moment ;  I  cannot 
transfer  to  paper  my  absorbing  desire  that  the  zvill  of  God  may 
be  done  in  this  matter.  I  dare  no  more  say  I  decline,  or  I 
accept  (except  on  the  beforementioned  grounds)  than  I  dare 
take  my  destiny  into  my  own  hands,  the  cry  of  my  inmost  soul 
is,  Thy  will  be  done.  If  you  come  on  Saturday  I  shall  presume 
that  you  are  satisfied  on  these  two  points,  and  that  henceforth 
we  are  one ;  in  the  meantime  I  shall  not  cease  to  pray  that  God 
may  guide  you  aright.  May  He  bless  you,  and  if  He  sees  that 
I  am  not  such  an  one  as  you  need  to  be  an  helpmate  for  you, 
may  He  enable  you  to  forget  me.  .  .  . 


William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

Walworth,  June  24. 
(Probably  1852.) 

My  own  dear  Catherine — .  .  .  I  feel  uncommonly  tired 
and  weary  this  morning.  My  head  aches,  and  I  feel  altogether 
out  of  order.  I  walked  home  from  Greenwich  last  night.  I 
ought  to  have  ridden.  1  preached  there  with  much  liberty  and 
trust  some  profit  to  the  people,  though  the  congregation  was 
not  so  good  as  the  Week  before,  some  of  the  leading  friends 
having  gone  to  some  fete  in  the  neighbourhood.  .  .  . 

Let  us  love  Him  better  for  the  love  we  bear  each  other,  and 
seek  in  all  things  perfect  and  unimpaired  conformity  to  all  His 
will  and  work.  I  hope  when  you  can  that  you  will  resume  your 
reading,  and  I  trust  in  better  spirits  and  with  a  firmer  trust  in 
the  Hand  that  feeds  the  ravens.  .  .  . 


144  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH  [chap,  xn] 

William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

Monday  morning. 

My  own  loving  Kate  —  It  has  just  occurred  to  my  mind 
that  I  did  not  leave  you  a  correct  address  of  that  poor  girl,  and 
lest  you  should  be  prevented  from  your  benevolent  undertaking 
I  post  this  to  inform  you.  If  you  leave  the  omnibus  at  the 
Obelisk,  at  the  end  of  the  London  and  at  the  foot  of  the  Water- 
loo and  Blackfriars'  Roads,  you  will  be  but  a  few  yards  from 
your  destination,  which  is  No.  3  or  4  Duke  Street,  next  door  to 
a  Plumber  and  Glazier's  shop ;  it  is  up  two  flights  of  stairs ; 
take  with  you  a  smelling-bottle ;  a  widow  woman,  who  lives  in 
the  room  as  you  enter  from  the  street,  if  you  ask  her  for  the 
poor  girl  of  the  name  of  "  Leach,"  will  show  you  her  room,  I 
doubt  not.  Speak  pointedly  to  all  you  see  of  the  family ;  men- 
tion my  name.  .  .  . 

My  love  to  you,  all  my  heart.  I  may  or  may  not  see  you  this 
evening.  I  write  this  on  purpose  that  you  may  have  the  direc- 
tion to  that  poor  dying  girl.  Pray  for  me,  oh  to  be  willing  to 
take  any  path  which  may  promise  most  the  diffusion  of  right- 
eousness and  the  glory  of  God.  Oh  let  us  give  ourselves  afresh 
and  entirely  to  Him;  never  was  such  a  sacrifice  as  this  needed 
as  now ;  I  would  make  my  choice  under  the  influence  of  deep 
piety  and  devotion,  and  I  shall  not  err. 

My  love  to  your  dear  mother.  I  love  not  only  you,  but  her 
better  than  ever  before. 

I  pray  for  your  entire  consecration,  and  believe  me, —  Yours 
in  the  closest  alliance  of  united  soul,  spirit,  and  body,  for  time 
and  for  eternity,  for  earth  and  for  Heaven,  for  sorrow  and  for 
joy,  for  ever  and  for  ever.     Amen.  William. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WILLIAM    BOOTH    AS    A    SUCCESSFUL    EVANGELIST. 
CATHERINE  MUMFORD  AS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL 

1852-1853 

It  was  not  until  he  got  into  Lincolnshire  that  William  Booth 
felt  sure  of  his  vocation.  The  experiment  in  London  had 
been  a  failure,  as  we  have  seen,  and  one  that  rather  tended 
to  diminish  the  young  man's  confidence  in  his  calling.  He 
has  left  a  fragment  behind  him  which  expresses  his  disgust 
for  the  satisfied  and  sanctimonious  people  among  whom^  he 
had  attempted  to  labour,  and  alludes  briefly  to  the  now 
pressing  crisis  in  his  financial  affairs : 

But  the  people  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  me.  They 
"  did  not  want  a  parson."  They  reckoned  they  were  all  par- 
sons, so  that  at  the  end  of  the  three  months'  engagement  the 
weekly  income  came  to  an  end ;  and  indeed  I  would  not  have 
renewed  the  engagement  on  any  terms.  There  was  nothing  for 
me  to  do  but  to  sell  my  furniture  and  live  on  the  proceeds, 
which  did  not  supply  me  for  a  very  long  time.  I  declare  to 
you  that  at  that  time  I  was  so  fixed  as  not  to  know  which  way 
to  turn. 

In  my  emergency  a  remarkable  way  opened  for  me  to  enter 
college  and  become  a  Congregational  minister.  But  after  long 
waiting,  several  examinations,  trial  sermons,  and  the  like,  I  was 
informed  that  on  the  completion  of  my  training  I  should  be 
expected  to  believe  and  preach  what  is  known  as  Calvinism. 
After  reading  a  book  which  fully  explained  the  doctrine,  I 
threw  it  at  the  wall  opposite  me,  and  said  I  would  sooner  starve 
than  preach  such  doctrine,  one  special  feature  of  which  was  that 
only  a  select  few  could  be  saved. 

My  little  stock  of  money  was  exhausted.  I  remember  that 
I  gave  the  last  sixpence  I  had  in  the  world  to  a  poor  woman 
whose  daughter  lay  dying ;  but  within  a  week  I  received  a 
letter  inviting  me  to  the  charge  of  a  Methodist  Circuit  in  Lin- 
colnshire, and  from  that  time  my  difficulties  of  that  kind  be- 
came much  less  serious. 

He  was  encouraged,  as  we  know,  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
Catherine  Mumford  during  this  distressing  period,  but  it 

14s 


146  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

must  have  been  hard  indeed  for  a  young  man  with  his  foot 
on  the  threshold  of  a  career  to  find  the  door  of  destiny  thus 
shut  in  his  face. 

His  reception  in  Spalding  was  the  very  reverse  of  his 
experience  in  London.  He  gives  in  his  unpublished  reminis- 
cences a  hurried  account  of  this  first  great  experience  as  a 
Methodist  preacher,  which  we  will  quote  in  this  place;  but 
it  is  really  in  the  letters  of  Catherine  Mumford,  which  shall 
follow,  that  one  gets  a  close,  striking,  and  intimate  knowl- 
edge of  his  mind  at  that  period : 

The  Spalding  people  welcomed  me  as  though  I  had  been  an 
angel  from  Heaven,  providing  me  with  every  earthly  blessing 
within  their  ability,  and  proposing  that  I  should  stay  with  them 
for  ever !  They  wanted  me  to  marry  right  away,  offered  to 
furnish  me  a  house,  provide  me  with  a  horse  to  enable  me  more 
readily  to  get  about  the  country,  and  proposed  other  things  that 
they  thought  would  please  me. 

With  them  I  spent  the  happiest  eighteen  months  of  my  life. 
Of  course  my  horizon  was  much  more  limited  in  those  days 
than  it  is  now,  and  consequently  required  less  to  fill  it. 

Although  I  was  only  twenty-three  years  of  age  and  Lincoln- 
shire was  one  of  the  counties  that  had  been  most  privileged  with 
able  Methodist  preaching  for  half  a  century,  and  I  had  to 
immediately  follow  in  Spalding  a  somewhat  renowned  minister, 
God  helped  me  very  wonderfully  to  make  myself  at  home,  and 
become  a  power  amongst  the  people. 

I  felt  some  nervousness  when  on  my  first  November  Sunday 
I  was  confronted  by  such  a  large  congregation  as  greeted  me. 
In  the  morning  I  had  very  little  liberty ;  but  good  was  done, 
as  I  afterwards  learned.  In  the  afternoon  we  had  a  Prayer-  or 
After-meeting,  at  which  one  young  woman  wept  bitterly.  I 
urged  her  to  come  to  the  communion-rails  at  night.  She  did 
so,  and  the  Lord  saved  her.  She  afterwards  sent  me  a  letter 
thanking  me  for  urging  her  to  come.  In  the  evening  I  had 
great  liberty  in  preaching,  and  fourteen  men  and  women  came 
to  the  communion-rail ;  many,  if  not  all,  finding  the  Saviour. 

On  the  Monday  I  preached  there  again.  Four  came  for- 
ward, three  of  whom  professed  to  find  Salvation.  I  exerted 
myself  very  much,  felt  very  deeply,  and  prayed  very  earnestly 
over  an  old  man  who  had  been  a  backslider  for  seven  years. 
He  wept  bitterly,  and  prayed  to  the  Lord  to  save  him,  "  if  He 
could  wash  a  heart  as  black  as  Hell."  By  exerting  myself  so 
much  I  made  myself  ill,  and  was  confined  to  the  house  during 
the  rest  of  the  week.  My  host  and  hostess  were  very  kind  to 
me. 


xiii]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  147 

The  next  Sunday  I  started  from  home  rather  unwell.  I  had 
to  go  to  Donnington,  some  miles  away,  in  the  morning  and 
evening,  and  to  Swineshead  Bridge  in  the  afternoon. 

But  at  night  God  helped  me  to  j^reach  in  such  a  way  that 
many  came  out,  and  fourteen  names  were  taken  of  those  who 
really  seemed  satisfactory.  It  was  indeed  a  melting,  moving 
time. 

I  was  kneeling,  talking  to  a  penitent,  when  some  one  touched 
me  on  the  shoulder  and  said,  "  Here  is  a  lady  who  has  come  to 
seek  the  Saviour,  and  now  she  has  come  to  hear  you,  and  she 
wants  Salvation  too."  The  Lord  had  mercy  upon  her,  and  she 
went  away  rejoicing. 

At  Swineshead  Bridge  —  the  name  gives  some  idea  of  the 
utterly  rural  character  of  the  population  —  I  was  to  preach  on 
three  successive  evenings,  in  the  hope  of  promoting  a  Revival 
there.  Many  things  seemed  to  be  against  the  project,  but  the 
Lord  was  for  us.  Two  people  came  out  on  the  Monday  eve- 
ning, and  God  saved  them  both.  This  raised  our  faith  and 
cheered  our  spirits,  especially  as  we  knew  that  several  more 
souls  were  in  distress. 

On  the  Tuesday  the  congregation  was  better.  The  news  had 
spread  that  the  Lord  was  saving,  and  that  seldom  fails  to  bring 
a  crowd  wherever  it  may  be.  That  evening  the  word  was  with 
power,  and  six  souls  cried  for  mercy.  At  the  earnest  solicita- 
tion of  the  people  I  decided  to  stay  the  remainder  of  the  week, 
and  urged  them  to  pray  earnestly,  with  the  result  that  many 
sought  and  found  Salvation,  and  the  little  Society  was  nearly 
doubled. 

On  the  Saturday,  just  as  I  started  home  on  the  omnibus,  a 
plain,  unsophisticated  Christian  man  came  and  said,  "  O  sir, 
let  me  have  hold  of  your  hand."  When  he  had  seized  it  be- 
tween both  his,  with  tears  streaming  down  his  face,  he  said, 
"  Glory  be  to  God  that  ever  you  came  here.  My  wife  before 
her  conversion  was  a  cruel  persecutor,  and  a  sharp  thorn  in  my 
side.  She  would  go  home  from  the  Prayer-Meeting  before  me, 
and  as  full  of  the  Devil  as  possible;  she  would  oppose  and  re- 
vile me;  but  now,  sir,  she  is  just  the  contrary,  and  my  house, 
instead  of  being  a  little  Hell  has  become  a  little  Paradise." 
This  was  only  one  of  a  number  of  cases  in  which  husbands  re- 
joiced over  wives,  and  wives  over  husbands,  for  whom  they 
had  long  prayed. 

I  shall  always  remember  with  pleasure  the  week  I  spent  at 
Swineshead  Bridge,  because  I  prayed  more  and  preached  with 
more  of  the  spirit  of  expectation  and  faith,  and  then  saw  more 
success  than  in  any  previous  week  of  my  life.  I  dwell  upon  it 
as,  perhaps,  the  week  which  most  effectually  settled  my  con- 
viction for  ever,  that  it  was  God's  purpose  by  my  using  the 
simplest  means  to  bring  souls  into  liberty,  and  to  break  into 


148  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  cold  and  formal  state  of  things  to  which  so  many  of  His 
people  only  too  readily  settle  down. 

The  letters  which  now  follow  are  of  considerable  impor- 
tance in  the  study  of  William  Booth's  development.  They 
reveal  his  excitement  in  his  work,  his  pleasure  in  his  own 
power,  the  self-satisfaction  of  a  young  enthusiast  conscious 
of  growing  popularity;  and  they  also  reveal  his  determina- 
tion to  adopt  revival  methods,  his  misgiving  as  to  Catherine 
Mumford's  feelings  in  this  matter,  his  own  tolerance  of 
those  who  follow  other  ways.  One  may  say  at  this  juncture 
that  while  William  Booth  never  lost  faith  in  the  rousing 
methods  of  revivalism,  he  never  once  claimed  for  such 
methods  a  universal  adoption  by  the  Church.  He  recog- 
nized from  the  first,  and  held  to  the  last,  that  there  are  tw^o 
distinct  fields  of  religious  activity  —  the  field  of  aggressive 
evangelism  and  the  pastoral  field. 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  letters  that  Catherine  Mum- 
ford's  influence  was  exerted  at  the  very  beginning  of  their 
engagement  on  the  side  of  a  deeper  and  truer  spirituality 
that  William  Booth  had  then  visualised ;  one  of  her  letters, 
indeed,  deserves  to  live,  and  probably  will  live,  as  one  of 
the  beautiful  documents  in  the  literature  of  mysticism;  at 
the  same  time  one  must  keep  in  mind  that  William  Booth 
eventually  carried  the  day  with  her,  and  won  her  over  com- 
pletely to  the  side  of  a  demonstrative  and  aggressive  prop- 
aganda, which  she  purified  and  exalted  as  the  years  went  on. 

William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding, 
Thursday,  Nov.  17. 
My  dearest  earthly  Treasure  —  Bless  you  a  thousand 
times  for  your  very  kind  letter  just  received;  it  has  done  my 
heart  good.  I  have  thought  about  you  much  and  very  affec- 
tionately the  last  few  days.  ...  I  should  have  written  you  yes- 
terday, but  was  so  unwell  that  I  could  not.  ...  I  do  not  doubt  our 
future  oneness  with  regard  to  revivalism  and  about  all  things. 
I  have  such  faith  in  our  powers  of  utterance  that  we  shall  be 
able  to  make  plain  to  each  other  what  we  mean,  and  our  love  to 
each  other,  that  when  we  can  be  brought  to  see  truth  held  by  the 
other  we  shall  rejoice  to  adopt  it.  And  although  now  I  do  not 
doubt  I  could  bear  with  extravagancies  in  a  preacher  or  a 
prayer-meeting  which  you  would  condemn  ...  I  do  not  blame 


xni]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  149 

you,  so  wait  until  the  time  comes,  and  we  shall  yet,  I  do  not 
doubt,  see  with  the  same  eyes.  .  .  .  The  great  difference  be- 
tween a  man  known  as  a  faithful  preacher  nowadays  and  one 
of  the  John  Smith,  Wm.  Bramwell,  James  Cau<;hcy,  David 
Stoner,  Ralph  Walter,  and  Richard  Poole  school  is.  I  think,  in 
this  —  the  one  deals  out  the  plain  truth  as  do  Mr.  Thomas,  Mr. 
Gamble,  Mr.  Brown,  Luke  Tyerman,  and  others  in  nice  suit- 
able language  with  considerable  thought,  prayer,  and  earnest- 
ness—  and  faithfulness  too  —  but  there  it  ends  so  far  as  yoii 
can  see;  but  the  other  school  preach  similar  pointed  truth,  urg- 
ing more  especially  salvation  by  faith,  just  now,  and  then  direct 
calling  on  sinners  to  lay  down  the  weapons  of  rebellion,  and 
give  up  their  hearts  to  God  nozv,  following  all  up  with  a  prayer- 
meeting  and  penitent-forms,  benches,  or  pews.  ...  I  do  not 
condemn  any  —  I  leave  every  man  to  follow  out  the  bent  of 
his  own  inclination  and  to  act  up  to  the  teaching  of  God's 
Spirit  —  but  I  know  which  God  owns  the  most.  I  believe  that 
with  Mr.  Thomas's  talent,  if  he  would  follow  such  measures 
he  might  soon  have  his  chapel  crowded  and  hundreds  converted 
to  God.  I  do  not  speak  censoriously.  I  have  not  the  tact  and 
the  talent  that  thousands  have,  and  yet  under  their  ministry 
how  little  do  we  see  done;  what  I  have  of  head  or  heart  or  lip 
shall  be  consecrated  and  sacred  to  this  service.  .  .  . 

The  great  plan  of  Salvation  is,  ceasing  from  making  efforts 
to  make  unto  yourself  a  righteous  character,  and  sinking  help- 
less into  the  arms  of  Christ  and  accepting  Full  Salvation,  a 
pure  heart,  and  all  the  blessings  of  the  New  Covenant  by  faith. 
I  see  that  I  have  erred  here.  I  have  promised  and  promised, 
and  bowed  and  bowed,  and  always  failed ;  whereas  now  I  go  to 
Him  and  say,  I  am  nothing,  Thou  art  my  all  in  all.  Try  this. 
Will  you,  darling?  —  Don't  begin  at  the  outside  and  aim  at 
patching  up  this  rent  and  that  rent  in  your  life,  but  go  to  Jesus 
and  take  the  blessings  of  a  pure  heart  at  His  hand,  and  say, 

'Tis  done,  Thou  dost  this  moment  save. 

With  full  salvation  bless, 
Redemption  through  Thy  Blood  I  have 

And  spotless  love  and  peace. 

Read  one  or  two  of  John  Wesley's  sermons  now  and  then. 
You  shall  have  some  more  books  when  we  meet  again  all  well. 
May  the  Lord  bless  you.  Read  over  again  the  Life  of  Mrs. 
Fletcher.  Farewell.  I  want  to  see  you  very  much.  I  have 
thought  about  you  very  tenderly  since  I  have  been  ill.  Oh  how 
I  wanted  your  hand  on  my  aching  head.  .  .  . 

I  had  to  have  brandy  twice,  was  really  ill,  thought  much  of 
you.  Got  better  and  went  and  preached,  and  came  home  and 
made  a  hearty  dinner  of  goose,  etc.,  etc.  Mr.  Molesworth  lives 
in  a  very  nice  house,  built  by  himself,  wooden,  and  beautifully 


ISO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

furnished.  He  is  a  large  farmer  and  a  man  of  some  property, 
has  a  large  family  remarkably  well  behaved,  and  for  whom  he 
keeps  a  Governess  in  the  house.  From  his  house  I  walked  on  to 
Holbeach,  where  I  found  that  I  was  announced  to  preach,  and 
notwithstanding  my  weakness  I  had  to  do  so ;  the  congregation 
was  large  and  respectable.  I  had  great  liberty  in  preaching 
from  Christ  having  overcome  the  world.  In  the  morning  I  had 
again  to  take  brandy  twice,  and  then  I  preached  with  some 
pleasure  from  Paul  not  being  ashamed  of  the  Gospel ;  after- 
wards was  hurled  away  by  a  gentleman,  by  name  Mr.  George 
Brown,  to  Holbeach  Marsh,  some  eight  miles  away ;  he  took 
me  in  his  gig.  I  found  his  home  quite  a  nice  house,  a  large 
family  of  very  nice  and  apparently  well-educated  children,  a 
resident  Governess  (a  young  lady  who  is  leaving  in  a  deep 
decline),  and  everything  first  rate.  I  made  an  excellent  din- 
ner, and  away  we  went  to  preach ;  service  held  in  a  large 
kitchen,  which  was  quite  full,  about  69  or  70  present.  I  sup- 
pose the  Conference  get  about  6  or  7,  so  that  there  is  little  fear 
of  our  getting  the  chapel.  I  had  a  little  liberty.  Here  I  met 
Mr.  Jonathan  Longhatton,  reported  to  me  as  the  most  shrewd 
and  talented  preacher  and  speaker  in  the  Circuit.  He  gave  me 
a  hearty  welcome,  and  assured  me  how  glad  he  should  be  to  see 
me  at  his  house,  and  told  me  that,  as  a  man  of  experience,  I 
must  take  port  wine,  that  he  could  tell  by  my  voice  and  appear- 
ance that  it  would  do  me  good.  My  health  is  of  first  im- 
portance. What  do  you  say,  dearest?  After  shaking  hands, 
away  we  went  in  the  gig  again,  and  after  a  cold,  bleak  ride  I 
reached  Holbeach,  took  tea  with  Mr.  Feet,  and  preached  on 
"  This  is  indeed  the  Christ "  to  a  large  and  attentive  congre- 
gation with  great  pleasure  to  myself.  Supper  with  Mr.  Feet, 
who  is  a  man  of  property,  perhaps  as  rich  as  any  man  in  the 
Circuit ;  afterwards  returned  to  what  is  my  present  home,  Mr. 
Ryecroft,  a  local  preacher  of  whom  I  have  spoken  to  you  be- 
fore as  being  so  beloved  and  popular. 

So  that  by  the  time  I  reach  Spalding  on  Friday,  after  being 
absent  seven  days,  I  shall  have  preached,  "  all  well,"  10  instead 
of  6  sermons. 

But  I  mean  on  another  plan  to  keep  them  to  their  word,  at 
least  after  this  week.  And  now,  my  dearest,  will  you  contrive 
to  get  my  things  off  this  week?  There  are  very  few  clothes 
worth  sending.  ...  I  think,  when  I  get  some  money,  to  write 
to  Yorkshire  and  get  my  old  friend  Mr.  Scholes  to  make  and 
send  me  a  piece  of  cloth.  But  if  you  will,  get  them  sent  off  and 
directed  to  me  at 

Mr.  Green's, 
Baker, 

Red  Lion  Street, 

Spalding,  Lincolnshire, 


xin]  HIS  GUARDL\N  ANGEL  151 

where  your  next  letter  must  also  be  directed.  I  have  left 
orders  that  should  they  get  there  before  me  they  are  to  be  paid 
for  and  taken  in.  .  .  . 

Be  assured  of  my  continued  afifections  and  purest  intentions, 
and  that  if  your  health  and  my  circumstances  would  warrant 
it,  our  wedding,  instead  of  January,  '54,  should  be  January,  '53. 

With  my  love  to  your  dearest  mother,  father,  and  Mr.  M. —  I 
remain,  my  darling, —  yours  as  ever  and  for  ever,    William. 

To  MY  DEAREST  LovE  —  My  position  here  is  likely  to  be  just 
to  my  own  mind. 

The  letters  of  Catherine  Mumford,  which  now  follow, 
show  how  she  watched  the  popular  young  preacher  from 
afar,  and  how  in  the  midst  of  her  satisfaction  at  his  opening 
success  she  was  profoundly  troubled  about  his  ultimate  des- 
tiny. These  letters  can  be  read  as  a  single  document,  and 
fortunately  they  not  only  give  one  a  most  intimate  impres- 
sion of  the  writer,  but  show  very  clearly  the  manner  of  man 
to  whom  they  were  written.  Some  of  these  letters  seem 
to  me  as  beautiful  love-letters  as  any  in  the  world,  reaching 
at  times  heights  of  religious  inspiration  hardly  to  be 
matched  in  the  literature  of  the  saints,  and  sounding  so  un- 
mistakable a  note  of  truth  and  purity  of  aim  that  thev  do 
not  suffer  in  the  least  from  an  occasional  tise  of  the  now 
outworn  vocabulary  of  Methodist  fervour. 

London, 
December  ly,  '52. 

My  beloved  William  —  I  think  your  depreciatory  remarks 
on  the  character  of  your  epistles  were  much  out  of  place  at 
the  commencement  of  the  very  kind  and  beautiful  letter  I  re- 
ceived this  morning.  If  any  one  who  did  not  know  me  had  seen 
me  walk  about  the  parlour  dissolved  in  tears,  after  its  perusal, 
they  would  have  thought  I  had  received  some  very  distressing 
intelligence,  but  they  were  tears  of  gladness  and  gratitude  for 
the  goodness  of  God.  Oh  how  my  soul  praises  Him  for  the 
favourable  aspect  of  your  affairs! 

I  think  the  issue  of  the  committee-meeting  most  satisfactory. 
I  did  not  expect  more  than  £65,  and  your  position  being  de- 
fined so  exactly  according  to  your  own  views,  and  their  not 
desiring  so  many  sermons  as  you  supposed,  is  over  and  above 
anything  I  had  ever  hoped ;  let  us  praise  the  Lord  and  be 
encouraged. 

Of  the  kindness  of  the  people,  I  cannot  speak ;  I  can  only 
feel  its  value  and  pray  for  an  hundredfold  return  of  it  to  their 


152  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

own  bosoms.  I  think  the  status  you  have  taken  amongst  them 
is  superior  to  my  anticipations  ;  mind,  my  Love,  that  you  sustain 
it,  as  a  man  and  gentleman  of  manners,  and  kindness  will  not 
fail  to  do  it.  "  As  superiority  of  mind,  or  something  not  to  be 
defined,  first  rivets  the  attention,  so  manners,  decent  and 
polite,  the  same  we  practised  at  first  sight,  must  save  it  from 
declension."  As  a  preacher,  study  will  not  only  enable  you  to 
maintain  your  present  status,  but  attain  a  higher.  You  promise 
me  to  do  what  you  can;  if  you  do  that,  I  have  no  fear.  You 
desire  me  to  do  all  I  can  for  myself.  I  will,  my  Love,  for 
your  dear  sake,  if  I  had  no  other  motive  my  love  for  you  would 
be  quite  sufficient  to  stimulate  me  to  exertion.  .  .  . 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  Mr.  Hanks  did  not  call  to  see  you  or 
invite  you  there ;  I  am  surprised  at  it ;  it  is  very  much  unlike 
him ;  but  I  fear  he  has  perhaps  fallen  in  some  way  which  has 
injured  his  character,  and  so  feels  ashamed  for  fear  you  should 
hear  it ;  but,  my  Love,  don't  on  that  account  shvm  him ;  try  to 
restore  him.  I  feel  deeply  for  him ;  he  is  a  good-hearted  man, 
and  when  engaged  in  the  service  of  God  a  zealous,  consistent 
Christian ;  but  he  has  been  overtaken  in  a  fault,  and  perhaps 
little  cared  for.  If  you  act  judiciously  I  think  you  may  be 
made  a  blessing  to  him.  I  will  not  forget  to  pray  that  you 
may.  Perhaps  he  fears  to  encounter  you,  anticipating  some 
close  conversation  on  soul  matters ;  I  am  sure  it  is  not  because 
he  is  near  or  wanting  in  esteem  for  us ;  at  least  I  think  so. 

You  ask  me,  my  Love,  to  tell  you  whether  I  forgive  you  for 
thinking,  or  rather  for  telling  me  your  thoughts,  about  that  one 
deficiency  which  spoiled  your  earthly  paradise  the  other  night? 
Will  you  forgive  me  if  I  answer  that  it  would  have  required  a 
far  greater  exercise  of  my  pardoning  mercy  if  you  had  asked 
me  to  forgive  you  for  not  thinking  about  it  ?  I  think  you  have 
acted  very  wisely,  as  well  as  most  honourably,  in  letting  your 
desires  as  to  marrying  be  known ;  I  have  been  thinking,  if  the 
Lord  should  indeed  favour  us  with  opportunity  as  soon  as  next 
year,  I  should  like  it  to  take  place  on  my  birthday,  January  17, 
1854.  You  will  smile,  and  no  wonder,  but  you  know  me, 
therefore  I  am  not  afraid  of  being  misunderstood.  What  you 
say  about  insuring  your  life  I  highly  approve,  and  shall  esti- 
mate such  act  as  another  proof  of  your  practical  affection  for 
myself.  .  ,  , —  Yours  in  tenderest  and  most  enduring  affec- 
tion, C. 

December  27,  '52. 
My  dearest  William  —  As  I  did  not  feel  in  writing-tune 
either  yesterday  or  on  Xmas  day,  I  will  this  evening  give  you  a 
sketch  of  our  Christmas  enjoyments.  Father  dined  at  home, 
and  though  our  number  was  so  small  we  enjoyed  ourselves  very 
well.     Your  representation  on  the  wall  seemed  to  look  down 


XIII]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  153 

on  our  sensual  gratification  with  awful  gravity,  manifesting  an 
indifference  to  the  good  things  of  this  life  not  at  all  char- 
acteristic of  the  original. 

I  thought  about  you  very  much  during  the  day.  I  could 
not  but  contrast  my  feelings  with  those  of  last  year.  Then  my 
anxieties  and  affections  were  centred  in  objects  whose  love  and 
care  I  had  experienced  through  many  changing  years.  Thoi  I 
knew  no  love  but  that  of  a  child,  a  sister,  a  friend,  and  I 
thought  that  love  deep,  sincere,  fervent ;  perhaps  it  was,  nay, 
/  knoiv  it  zvas;  but  since  then  a  stranger,  unknozvn,  unseen  till 
within  the  last  short  year,  has  strangely  drawn  around  him  the 
finest  tendrils  of  my  heart,  and  awakened  a  new  absorbing 
affection  which  seems,  as  it  were,  to  eclipse  what  I  before 
deemed  the  intensity  of  love.  Then  my  anxieties  were  almost 
confined  to  home;  nozv  this  same  stranger,  like  a  magnet, 
draws  them  after  him  in  all  his  wanderings,  so  that  they  are 
seldom  at  home.  What  a  change  in  one  short  year ;  can  you 
solve  the  mystery?     Can  you  find  the  reason? 

Rut  I  am  forgetting  to  detail  the  day's  pleasures,  etc.  After 
dinner  we  all  went  a  walk,  talked  about  you,  my  dear  brother ; 
the  changes  which  have  taken  place  in  a  few  years ;  the  changes 
which  will  probably  take  place  in  a  few  more,  etc.  My  dear 
father  ^  seemed  kinder  and  more  comfortable  than  usual ;  he  is 
still  a  teetotaler  and  is  abstaining  altogether  from  the  pipe; 
there  is  a  change  for  the  better  in  many  respects ;  don't  forget 
him,  my  Love,  at  the  Throne  of  Grace.  Help  me  and  my  dear 
mother  to  pray  for  him.  Oh,  surely  the  Lord  will  save  him, 
surely  He  will  not  visit  our  unfaithfulness  upon  us  in  this  way. 
My  soul's  cry  is,  "  Lord,  if  thou  must  chastise,  any  way  but 
this,"  it  zvould  be  bitter  anguish  to  mourn  as  they  who  have  no 
hope,  and  yet  how  little  I  have  thought  about  it  lately.  Oh  for 
a  Christ-like  sympathy  for  souls  such  as  I  used  to  feel,  when  I 
have  sat  up  half  the  night  to  pray  for  them.  My  dearest  Love, 
this  is  the  secret  of  success,  the  weapon  before  which  the  very 
strongholds  of  hell  must  give  w'ay.  Oh  let  us  try  to  get  it  again, 
let  us  make  up  our  minds  to  win  souls  whatever  else  we  leave 
undone. 

But  to  return  again.  We  spent  a  very  pleasant  evening  to- 
gether. I  lay  on  the  sofa  working  a  little  watch-pocket  for  the 
use  of  that  stranger  I  have  been  speaking  of,  which  I  hope  he 
will  use  for  my  sake  even  though  he  may  be  provided  with  one 
already.  I  hope  he  will  [  ?  not  think  I]  murdered  time;  it  did 
not  take  me  long.  My  dear  mother  and  myself  enjoyed  a  good 
season  in  prayer  and  then  retired  to  rest.  .  .  . 

Wednesday  night. —  My  dearest  Love,  I  received  your  very 

1  Mr.  Mumford,  who  was  a  carriage-builder,  had  lately  lost  his 
cntluisiasm  for  religious  work,  and  was  inclined  to  abandon  Methodism 
ahogether. 


154  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

kind  and  welcome  letter  yesterday  morning,  and  should  have 
written  immediately  only  that  I  knew  you  would  not  be  at 
Spalding  before  Friday.  I  have  felt  very  anxious  about  your 
health  since  hearing  you  were  so  poorly.  I  could  not  sleep  last 
night  for  thinking  about  you.  I  do  hope  you  are  better.  I 
fear,  my  Love,  you  are  not  sufficiently  careful  as  to  diet;  do 
exercise  self-denial  when  such  things  are  before  you  as  you 
have  any  reason  to  fear  will  disagree  with  you.  The  enclosed 
prescription  I  got  Mr.  Davis  to  copy  for  you ;  it  is  an  excellent 
one,  given  me  by  Mr.  Franks.  ...  If  you  are  not  quite  re- 
covered I  hope  you  will  get  it.  I  have  lost  faith  in  brandy; 
where  persons  are  not  accustomed  to  it,  it  may  act  beneficially 
for  the  time,  but  it  produces  a  reaction  by  irritation  of  the 
membrane  of  the  stomach,  whereas  the  mixture  never  fails  in 
my  case,  and  I  have  been  much  troubled. 

You  ask  my  opinion  about  your  taking  port  wine.  I  need 
not  say  how  willing,  nay,  anxious  I  am  that  you  should  have 
anything  and  everything  which  would  tend  to  promote  your 
health  and  happiness,  but  so  thoroughly  am  I  convinced  that 
port  wine  would  do  neither,  that  I  should  hear  of  your  taking 
it  with  unfeigned  grief.  You  must  not  listen,  my  dear,  to  the 
advice  of  every  one  claiming  to  be  experienced ;  persons  really 
experienced  and  judicious  in  many  things  not  infrequently  en- 
tertain notions  the  most  fallacious  on  this  subject.  I  have  had 
it  recommended  to  me  scores  of  times  by  such  individuals,  but 
such  recommendations  have  always  gone  for  nothing,  because 
I  have  felt  that,  however  much  my  superiors  such  persons 
might  be  in  other  respects,  on  that  subject  I  was  the  best  in- 
formed. I  have  even  argued  the  point  with  Mr.  Stevens,  and 
I  am  sure  set  him  completely  fast  for  arguments  to  defend 
alcohol  even  as  a  medicine.  I  am  fully  and  for  ever  settled  on 
the  physical  side  of  the  question ;  I  believe  you  are  on  the 
moral  and  religious,  but  I  have  never  thought  you  were  on  the 
physical. 

Now,  my  dearest,  it  is  absolutely  necessary,  in  order  to  save 
you  from  being  influenced  by  other  people's  false  notions,  that 
you  should  have  a  settled,  intelligent  conviction  on  the  subject, 
and  in  order  that  you  may  get  this  I  have  been  at  the  trouble 
almost  to  unpack  your  box,  which  was  beautifully  packed,  to 
get  out  Bachus,  in  which  you  will  find  several  green  marks  and 
likewise  some  pencillings  in  three  or  four  sections,  which  I  hope 
you  will  read.  To  read  all  the  book  would  take  too  much  time, 
or  else  it  would  do  you  good,  but  the  chapters  I  have  marked 
will  give  you  a  pretty  concise  view  of  that  part  of  the  subject 
you  most  need.  I  do  hope  you  will  read  it  if  you  sit  up  an  hour 
later  every  night  till  you  have  done  so  —  that  is,  when  you  re- 
tire at  ten  —  and  I  would  not  advise  this  for  anything  less  im- 
portant.    I  believe  the  perusal  will  fully  satisfy  you ;  but  if  it 


xHi]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  155 

should  not,  send  me  word  and  I  will  get,  if  it  is  to  be  got  in  Lon- 
don, a  work  by  Dr.  Lees,  admitted  to  be  the  best  work  ever 
written  on  the  question. 

It  is  a  subject  on  which  I  am  most  anxious  that  you  should 
be  tlwroiigli.  I  abominate  that  hackneyed  but  monstrously 
inconsistent  tale  —  a  teetotaler  in  principle,  but  obliged  to 
take  a  little  for  my  stomach's  sake.  Such  teetotalers  aid  the 
progress  of  intemperance  more  than  all  the  drunkards  in  the 
land,  and  there  are  abundance  of  them  amongst  Methodist 
preachers.  They  seem  a  class  of  men  the  right  performance  of 
whose  duties  seems  to  require  pretty  liberal  assistance  from  the 
bottle ;  the  fact  is  notorious,  and  doubtless  the  fault  is  chiefly 
with  the  people,  who  foolishly  consider  it  a  kindness  to  put  the 
bottle  to  their  neighbour's  mouth  as  frequently  as  he  will  re- 
ceive it ;  but  I  believe  my  dear  William  will  steadfastly  resist 
such  foolish  advisers  as  Mr.  L.,  and  firmly  adhere  to  his  princi- 
ples till  he  has  some  better  reason  to  abandon  them.  I  dare 
take  the  responsibility  (and  I  have  more  reason  to  feel  its 
weight  than  any  other  being)  of  advising  you  to  abandon  the 
idea  of  taking  wine  altogether.  I  have  far  more  hope  for  your 
health  because  you  abstain  from  stimulating  drinks  than  I 
should  have  if  you  took  them ;  to  one  of  your  temperament 
they  would  especially  prove  hurtful  and  destructive.  Be  care- 
ful to  abstain  from  all  things  which  you  k^iozv  to  injure  your 
health,  and  I  have  no  doubt  you  will  get  strong.  I  have  often 
heard  you  say  this  would  be  the  case  if  you  acted  judiciously. 
Oh  my  Love,  take  every  care  of  yourself,  get  everything  need- 
ful, but  flee  the  detestable  drink  as  you  would  a  serpent ;  be  a 
teetotaler  in  principle  and  practice;  and  in  this  respect  by  ex- 
ample, by  precept,  train  up  your  sons,  if  you  have  any,  in  the 
way  in  which  they  should  go. 

I  am  glad  you  feel  the  importance  of  the  training  of  children, 
there  is  no  subject  on  which  I  have  felt  and  still  feel  more 
acutely.  I  have  often  looked  on  a  little  child  and  felt  my  whole 
frame  afifected  by  the  consideration  that  it  were  possible  for 
me  some  time  to  become  a  mother;  the  awful  weight  of  re- 
sponsibility wrapped  up  in  that  beautiful  word  has  often  caused 
my  spirit  to  sink  within  me.  Oh  if  I  did  not  fully  intend,  and 
ardently  hope,  to  train  my  own  (if  ever  blessed  with  any)  dif- 
ferently to  the  way  in  which  most  are  trained,  I  would  pray 
every  day,  most  earnestly,  that  I  might  never  have  any.  Oh  the 
miserable  homes  that  might  be  happy ;  the  lacerated  hearts 
which  might  bound  with  joy;  the  blighted  flowers  which  might 
have  bloomed  on  earth  and  expanded  in  heaven,  but  for  the 
wretched,  foolish,  wicked  indifference  of  parents.  I\Iy  dear, 
I  hope  you  do  not  consider  the  arduous  but  glorious  work  of 
training  the  intellectual  and  moral  nature  of  the  child  solely 
the  duty  of  the  mother.     Remember  the  father  is,  and  must  be, 


156  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

in  every  well-regulated  family,  the  head  of  his  household. 
Think  for  a  few  moments  what  is  implied  in  being  their  head, 
their  ruler,  their  shepherd,  their  tender  parent.  Oh  my  Love, 
you  have  need  to  prepare,  head  and  heart,  for  the  right  per- 
formance of  the  momentous  relationships  you  desire  to  realize. 
As  soon  as  you  can  afford  it,  buy  Abbot's  Mother  at  Home, 
price  IS.,  and  lend  it  to  some  of  the  mothers  you  come  in  con- 
tact with;  never  mind  the  silent  reproof  conveyed  by  the  loan, 
it  will  do  good.  And,  oh,  if  the  book  were  made  the  instrument 
of  rescuing  one  poor  little  darling  from  the  miserable  conse- 
quences of  domestic  misrule,  it  would  amply  repay  the  un- 
pleasantness of  any  little  pique  taken  at  its  presentation ;  and 
besides,  it  is  as  much  your  duty  to  reprove  as  to  exhort. 

Good-night,  I  must  conclude  to-morrow,  when  I  hope  to 
receive  another  letter  with  good  news  respecting  your  health. 

Sunday  night,  January  16,  '53. 

My  dearest  William  —  I  am  now  closing  the  last  day  of  my 
23rd  year.  I  have  been  reflecting  on  the  circumstances  and 
experiences  of  my  past  life,  on  its  sins,  sorrows,  joys,  and 
mercies,  and  my  soul  is  deeply  moved  by  the  retrospect ;  for 
though  my  short  course  has  been  marked  by  no  very  extraor- 
dinary outward  events,  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  discipline  of 
soul  through  which  I  have  passed  has  been  peculiar  and  calcu- 
lated to  fit  me  for  usefulness  in  the  cause  of  God.  I  feel  truly 
ashamed  (now  that  clearer  light  seems  to  shine  on  the  path  in 
which  the  Lord  has  led  me)  of  my  continual  murmurings  and 
discontent  because  of  the  circumstances  in  which  He  has  per- 
mitted me  to  be  cast;  I  have  spent  hours  in  bitter  grief  and 
useless  regret  because  of  the  disadvantages  under  which  I  have 
laboured.  I  have  often  charged  God  foolishly  and  wished  I 
had  been  born  with  a  mind  content  to  feed  on  the  empty  husks 
in  which  I  have  seen  others  take  so  much  delight,  rather  than 
be  conscious  of  the  possession  of  powers  which  must  lay  dor- 
mant and  talents  uncultivated,  and  desires  and  hopes  which 
could  never  be  realized.  I  have  been  ready  to  demand  of  the 
Lord  why  He  made  me  thus,  and  deprived  me  of  the  means  of 
that  culture  and  improvement  which  He  had  so  lavishly  be- 
stowed upon  others  who  neither  valued  nor  used  them.  Thus 
has  my  foolish  and  wicked  heart  often  been  ready  to  enter 
into  judgment  with  the  Almighty,  not  considering  the  superior- 
ity of  the  gifts  He  has  bestowed  to  those  which  I  coveted. 

Truly  I  have  laboured  under  many  disadvantages  and  have 
often  thought  my  lot  on  that  account  very  hard,  but  now  I  see 
and  acknowledge  the  goodness  of  God  in  having  made  up  for 
them  by  the  bestowment  of  that,  without  which  all  the  ad- 
vantages in  the   world  would  have  availed  me   nothing,   and 


XIII]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  157 

above  all  by  the  impartation  of  the  light  and  influence  of  His 
Holy  Spirit  which  has  attended  nie  from  earliest  infancy,  and 
often  excited  in  my  childish  heart  thoughts,  struggles,  hopes, 
and  fears  of  no  ordinary  nature ;  though  such  struggles  were  hid 
in  the  penetralia  of  my  own  spirit  and  unknown  to  any  mortal. 
Showers  of  tears,  and  scores  of  prayers  were  poured  out  by 
me,  when  a  very  little  girl,  at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  when  not 
more  than  twelve  I  passed  through  such  an  ordeal  of  fiery 
temptation  for  about  the  space  of  three  months  as  but  to  reflect 
on  makes  my  soul  recoil  within  me ;  at  that  early  age  I  f re- 
f|uently  watered  my  couch  with  my  tears,  and  the  billows  of  the 
Almighty  seemed  to  go  over  me.  Many  a  time  my  whole 
frame  has  trembled  under  the  foul  attacks  of  the  adversary, 
and  his  attacks  were  so  subtle  and  of  such  a  nature,  that  I 
could  not  then,  on  pain  of  death,  have  revealed  them  to  any  one ; 
so  I  endured  alone  and  unaided  by  any  earthly  friend  these 
fearful  conflicts  of  soul;  the  effects  of  which  soon  became 
manifest  in  pale  cheeks  and  failure  of  health  and  spirits,  though 
the  true  cause  was  unknown.  But  the  storm  passed,  and  my 
mind  regained  in  a  great  measure  its  former  vivacity,  my  soul 
found  some  repose  in  Christ,  which  alas !  soon  became  dis- 
turbed and  was  ultimately  lost,  the  fitfulnes's  of  childish  feeling, 
the  changes  and  enjoyments  of  youth  and  the  absence  of  those 
helps  I  so  much  needed,  induced  seasons  of  indifference,  and  I 
frequently  grieved  the  Holy  Spirit  by  relapsing  into  sin ;  but  the 
wondrous  goodness  of  my  God  endured  with  much  long- 
suff'ering  my  waywardness  and  indecision,  till  at  length  I  was 
roused  to  deep  and  lasting  concern  to  become  in  all  things 
conformed  to  His  will  (for  I  regarded  conformity  to  the  will  of 
God  as  true  religion  even  from  childhood).  Alas!  how^  the 
admission  condemns  me,  but  so  it  was,  and  I  earnestly  sought 
till  I  found  a  sense  of  His  favour  and  this  conformity  to  His 
blessed  will ;  and  after  that  happy  change  I  have  often  told  you 
how  much  I  enjoyed  His  presence,  and  how  I  went  on  for  some 
time  from  strength  to  strength,  being  more  than  conqueror 
over  sin  and  Satan  who  continued  to  wage  with  me  a  distress- 
ing warfare.  Oh  if  I  had  followed  on  in  the  same  glorious 
path  how  different  would  have  been  my  feelings  to-night,  but 
alas!  I  left  my  first  love  and  wandered  from  the  side  of  my 
Saviour ;  and  you  know  the  consequences.  My  soul  is  now 
like  the  temple  deserted;  bereft  of  the  abiding  manifestation  of 
God's  presence ;  receiving  only  now  and  then  a  transitory  ray, 
a  short  and  flickering  illumination;  but  I  am  tired  of  living 
thus,  my  soul  pants,  yea  even  fainteth  again  to  behold  the 
brightness  of  His  glory,  to  abide  in  the  sunshine  of  His  smile. 
In  Him  I  haz'e  found  solid  peace,  in  Him  I  am  resolved  to  find 
it  again,  and  oh,  glorious  possibility,  I  may  regain  what  I  have 
lost,  yea  with  abundant  increase.  .  .  . 


158  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

The  desires  of  a  whole  Hfe  to  be  consecrated  to  the  service  of 
God  seem  revived  in  my  soul.  I  feel  sometimes  as  though  I 
could  do  or  suffer  anything  to  glorify  Him  who  has  been  so 
wondrously  merciful  to  me.  I  have  besought  Him  most  ear- 
nestly to  cut  short  His  work  and  hide  me  in  the  grave  if  He 
sees  that  my  future  life  would  not  glorify  Him  more  than  the 
past  has  done.  I  was  formed  for  His  glory  and  created  for 
"  His  praise,"  and  if  the  end  of  my  existence  be  not  secured 
of  what  value  is  life?  —  I  would  rather  forego  its  momentary 
joys  than  live  any  longer  to  dishonour  my  God,  even  if  I  be- 
lieved death  were  annihilation ;  but  I  will  hope  in  the  mercy  I 
have  slighted,  I  will  trust  to  the  grace  I  have  abused,  for 
strength  to  love  the  Lord  my  God  with  all  my  heart  and  to 
walk  in  all  His  ordinances  and  statutes  blameless.  I  have 
enjoyed  a  precious  season  in  prayer  to-night,  such  liberty  to 
ask,  such  a  melting  soul  I  have  not  for  a  long  time  experienced  ; 
I  did  not  forget  you,  my  dearest ;  no,  I  pleaded  hard  and  ear- 
nestly for  your  complete  consecration  to  God;  nothing  but  this, 
my  dear  William,  will  do  for  either  yoii  or  me. 

Others  may  trim  and  oscillate  between  the  broad  and  narrow 
path,  but  for  us  there  is  but  one  straight,  narrow,  shining  path 
of  perfect  devotedness,  and  if  we  walk  not  in  it,  we  are  undone. 
I  hope,  my  Love,  you  are  determined  to  be  altogether  a  man  of 
God,  nothing  less  v.'ill  secure  your  safety  or  usefulness.  God  is 
not  glorified  so  much  by  preaching,  or  teaching,  or  anything  else, 
as  by  holy  living.  You  acknowledge  the  possibility  of  going 
round  the  circuit  and  satisfying  the  people,  without  winning 
souls  to  God,  to  peace,  and  heaven.  Yes,  my  Love,  it  is  awfully 
possible,  and  especially  in  your  case  ;  but  to  live  a  holy  life  with- 
out winning  souls  is  just  as  impossible.  Oh  be  determined  to 
know  nothing  amongst  men  but  Christ,  seek  nothing  amongst 
them  but  His  exaltation.  His  mediatorial  renown ;  God  has 
graciously  given  you  the  desire  of  your  heart  in  opening  your 
way  to  the  ministry  of  His  gospel,  and  that  in  a  sphere  exactly 
suited  to  your  predilection  and  views  of  truth.  He  has  given 
you  a  wide  and  promising  vineyard  to  keep  and  water  for  Him, 
but  remember,  my  Love,  His  eye  is  ever  on  you,  He  is  trying 
your  heart.  He  is  proving  you  not  nozv  in  the  furnace  of 
affliction  and  adversity,  but  in  the  sunshine  of  prosperity,  in  a 
path  paved  with  kindness  and  dangerously  slippery.  Oh  watch  ! 
—  watch  the  motions  of  your  heart,  scrutinize  your  motives, 
analyse  your  desires  and  aims,  and  keep  your  eye  single,  get 
your  heart  filled  afresh  Avith  the  love  of  God  and  of  souls,  and 
aim  only  at  the  glory  of  God,  and  then  He  will  honour  you 
with  abundant  success ;  you  shall  not  labour  in  vain,  nor  spend 
your  strength  for  nought.  But,  my  dearest,  if  you  fail  to  give 
Him  all  the  glory,  if  self  be  mixed  up  with  your  efforts;  if  an 
unsanctified  ambition  fire  your  heart.  He  zuill,  because  He  loves 


xin]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  159 

you,  try  you  and  prove  yon  with  another  discipHne,  more  pain- 
ful, but  less  dangerous. 

Monday,  February  7,  '53. 

My  dearest  Love  —  I  am  glad  you  wrote  me  on  Saturday, 
for  I  had  not  received  a  letter  since  Wednesday  till  this  morn- 
ing, and  should  have  felt  very  uneasy  if  it  had  not  arrived.  I 
dreamed  the  other  night  that  you  had  hurt  your  foot  in  getting 
out  of  a  gig,  and  were  laid  up  through  it,  so  be  careful  what 
you  are  about. 

I  want  to  find  in  you  my  earthly  all;  I  expect  to  do  so ;  I  feel 
too  deeply  to  be  able  to  write  on  this  subject ;  whenever  I  try 
my  tears  blind  me ;  you  think  I  "  underestimate  your  love  " ; 
tt'/.'V,  my  dearest,  do  you  think  so?  Tell  me  why.  Perhaps  I 
write  too  fully  all  my  fears  and  thoughts  and  hopes  about  the 
future,  but  oh,  I  feel  the  importance  of  the  relationship  we  are 
to  sustain  to  each  other,  and  I  do  want  tis  both  to  be  prepared 
to  fill  it  with  as  much  happiness  to  each  other,  and  glory  to  God, 
and  good  to  others,  as  it  is  possible.  Be  assured,  my  Love,  I 
have  confidence  in  you,  I  believe  what  you  say,  but  you  know, 
William,  I  shall  give  up  my  all  to  you,  my  happiness,  my  life, 
my  pride,  and  perhaps  to  some  extent  my  eternal  destiny,  and 
is  it  unnatural  for  me  sometimes  to  express  a  little  anxiety ! 
But  believe  me,  my  ozvn  dear  Love,  I  have  confidence  in  your 
professions,  and  I  never  for  one  moment  doubted  the  honour- 
ableness  of  your  intentions.  As  to  the  time  of  our  union,  I  am 
surprised  you  think  it  will  be  practicable  so  soon,  and  I  cannot 
think  it  is  in  any  way  necessary  in  order  to  prevent  your  being 
unfaithful,  notwithstanding  all  the  temptations  to  which  you 
are  exposed.  You  have  often  told  me  that  your  love  was 
founded  on  the  deepest  esteem  of  your  soul,  that  I  have  the 
preference  of  your  judgment  and  soul,  and  that  your  love  for 
me  was  conceived  in  the  entire  absence  of  passion;  this  being 
the  case,  and  feeling  some  confidence  in  my  own  ability  to 
sustain  this  esteem,  I  am  not  so  anxious  as  I  otherwise  should 
be  about  the  temptations  you  meet  with,  though  I  am  thankful 
to  hear  they  are  no  temptation  to  you,  "  praise  the  Lord,  oh 
my  soul."  You  know  my  heart,  my  dear  William,  and  have 
formed  your  own  estimate  of  my  character,  your  choice  was  not 
made  hastily  nor  without  much  rational  calculation  and  earnest 
prayer,  and  I  am  persuaded  your  good  sense  and  Christian 
principle  will  shield  you  in  all  circumstances ;  you  have  a  right 
to  expect  grace  where  grace  is  needful  to  preserve  you,  because 
you  have  not  run  into  temptation  by  concealing  your  engage- 
ment ;  you  have  acted  honourably,  and  God  zvill  bless  you. 

Always  speak  when  there  is  a  necessity,  and  you  will  save 
yourself  from  the  snare  of  the  fowler.  You  need  not  fear 
your  own  heart  because  of  Mr.  C.,  your  character  and  his  are 
quite  opposite.     I  believe  Miss  Smith  has  been  sincere  and 


i6o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

truthful  in  her  statements  of  all  the  facts.  But,  notwithstand- 
ing my  confidence  in  you,  I  am  wiUing  to  come  and  help  you  as 
soon  as  all  things  are  equal ;  in  this  I  am  sure,  as  in  other 
things,  I  am  ready  to  consider  your  happiness,  but  you  must 
have  a  home  before  then.  Whenever  I  come,  I  doubt  not  I 
shall  love  the  people,  and  feel  an  interest  in  the  circuit  second 
only  to  yourself,  and  I  hope  to  be  very  useful  in  it.  I  must 
get  more  religion,  and  then  all  will  be  well.  I  must  get  self 
destroyed,  and  then  the  Lord  may  trust  me  to  do  good  without 
endangering  my  own  soul.  I  am  glad  to  hear  you  say  you  love 
me  best  when  you  love  Jesus  most ;  it  is  a  good  sign ;  such 
love  cannot  be  displeasing  to  Him ;  I  hope  we  shall  be  able  to 
love  Him  in  each  other,  and  each  other  in  Him,  and  that  the 
nearer  our  assimilation  to  Him,  the  nearer  will  be  our  assimila- 
tion to  each  other.  Glorious  possibility,  it  may  he  so;  let  us 
both  resolve  that  it  shall. 

I  intended  to  write  only  one  sheet,  but  somehow  I  cannot 
get  into  the  way  of  writing  short  letters,  so  much  crowds  up  to 
say,  that  I  cannot  help  it.  Write  me  two  as  long  as  you  can 
this  week.  Read  over  my  last  again,  and  think  what  there  is 
which  it  would  give  me  pleasure  to  hear  you  respond  to.  .  .  . 
Believe  me,  my  dearest  Love,  yours  in  "  unclouded  love." 

(In  February  i6,  '53.) 
My  dearest  Love  —  I  have  read  your  letter  again   since 
writing  the  enclosed  and  have  opened  the  envelope  to  send  you 
another  line. 

You  tell  me  that  after  three  months'  absence  your  heart 
turns  to  me  with  more  constancy  than  at  first,  and  that  you 
look  forward  to  a  union  as  the  consummation  of  earthly  bliss, 
etc.,  etc.,  and  then  add,  "  but  you  must  believe  this  and  rest 
satisfied  on  it."  My  dear,  be  assured  I  do  ahvays  believe  what- 
ever yoii  say;  you  seem  to  think  me  of  a  jealous,  suspicious 
nature ;  William,  I  am  not  so.  You  say,  "  What  will  become  of 
us  in  the  future  if  you  cannot  trust  and  thoroughly  rest  on  con- 
fidence in  me?"  My  dearest,  I  can  do  so,  if  you  do  not  give 
me  any  reason  to  distrust.  I  would  never  call  myself  by  your 
name,  if  I  did  not  feel  this  confidence ;  I  tell  you  that  I  repose 
in  you  with  all  my  heart ;  and  it  is  only  my  distress  when  any- 
thing you  write  forces  into  my  mind  a  doubt ;  not  of  your  hon- 
ourable intentions,  I  never  did  feel  one  doubt  on  that  subject; 
not  of  your  esteem,  I  never  doubted  that ;  not  of  your  truthful- 
ness, candour,  and  sincerity,  I  never  doubted  either ;  but  of 
what  cuts  deepest  of  all,  of  your  deepest  and  tenderest  love.  I 
never  was  tempted  to  doubt  anything  but  this,  and  that  only 
when  I  thought  you  deficient  in  manifesting  it.  Now  tell  me 
whether  you  acquit  me  of  groundless,  mean  suspicion ;  and  if  I 


xin]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  i6i 

have  unconsciously  given  you  pain,  even  though  it  has  been  to 
relieve  my  own,  do  you  forgive  me?  and  in  imagination  clasp 
me  to  your  bosom  and  tell  me  all  is  well?  Tell  me  on  Mon- 
day whether  it  is  so,  don't  forget. 

Catherine  Mumford  to  William  Booth. 

Friday  afternoon  {February,  1853). 

My  beloved  William  —  Your  very  kind  note  rejoiced  my 
heart  exceedingly  this  morning.  I  was  dressing  when  it  was 
brought  me,  and  I  had  just  been  thinking  how  ill  I  looked,  but 
after  reading  it  I  could  see  a  sensible  improvement  in  my  coun- 
tenance ;  it  struck  vie  as  I  looked  in  the  glass  to  complete  my 
toilet,  how  true  that  a  "  glad  heart  maketh  the  face  to  shine." 
I  have  been  reading  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon  in  bed  in  the 
morning,  and  I  never  before  was  so  struck  with  their  practical 
wisdom ;  they  will  never  wear  out,  they  are  applicable  to  all 
times,  with  very  few  exceptions.  I  wish  you  would  read  a 
chapter  a  day  carefully  and  thoughtfully  till  you  are  through 
them ;  do,  it  will  please  me  and  do  you  good.  Bless  you,  my 
dearest,  your  scrap  cheered  my  soul  and  made  all  within  me 
rejoice;  such  struggles  and  such  conquests  convince  me  of  the 
reali'ty  and  depth  of  your  affection  more  deeply  than  anything 
else  could  possibly  do.  Oh,  yes,  this  is  an  evidence  of  love, 
which  I  highly  appreciate;  self-sacrifice  is  the  touchstone  of 
affection,  it  proveth  the  reality  of  love.  Yes,  I  believe  now  that 
you  love  me,  and  besides,  your  affection  is  purer  and  more 
elevated  for  such  triumphs.  Oh,  bless  the  Lord,  I  do  rejoice. 
Do  not  think  this  mere  expression.  Oh,  I  feel  it,  I  do  indeed 
rejoice  in  it.  ...  I  was  thinking  this  morning  about  a  few 
words  you  said  when  here,  about  marrying ;  I  have  often 
thought  of  them,  I  think  they  were  spoken  thoughtlessly ;  I 
think  you  would  not  tlioughtfully  utter  them.  Suppose,  dear- 
est, we  never  expected  to  realize  any  further  union  than  we  do 
already,  would  you  not  marry  for  companionship,  social  and 
domestic  joys,  communion  of  heart  and  mind,  and  the  bliss  of 
being  loved  and  of  loving?  Tell  me  next  time.  /  feel  that 
these  are  the  highest  and  strongest  and  paramount  objects  with 
me;  I  would  marry  for  these  alone,  and  so  I  believe  you  would, 
though  you  said  differently,  but  you  did  not  stop  to  think.  I 
feel  better  satisfied  with  your  letters  than  I  ever  did  before, 
they  seem  zvarmer  and  transparent,  and  I  think  we  shall  both 
be  gainers  by  writing  oftener,  especially  if  we  try  to  enrich 
every  letter  by  at  least  one  sentiment  or  thought  worth  writing. 
I  mean  independent  of  news,  etc.,  etc. 

I  am  about  the  same  in  health  as  when  I  wrote  last,  the 
relaxatiion  came  on  before  I  had  finished  that  last  note ;  but  I 
would  not  say  so,  because  I  knew  it  would  trouble  you,  but  it 


i62  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

is  better  again  to-day.  I  saw  Mr.  H.  yesterday;  he  scolded 
me  for  going  because  it  was  foggy,  but  thought  me  better.  I 
am  to  go  on  Tuesday.  Let  us  hope  in  God ;  pray  for  me.  I 
will  remember  two  o'clock,  don't  you  forget  it.  This  is  your 
quarterly  meeting;  I  have  been  thinking  much  about  you,  and 
praying  for  direction.  I  do  not  wish  you  to  wait  four  years 
now ;  since  you  were  here  I  have  felt  convinced  that  your 
well-being  forbids  it;  otherwise  I  would  be  willing  to  purchase 
future  certainty  and  comfort  at  such  a  price;  but  if  you  could 
not  have  less  than  i6o,  and  Mr.  R.'s  iio  would  be  £yo,  on  which 
I  fear  not  to  venture  for  the  first  three  or  four  years,  and  then 
you  might  get  more  than  £60.  I  fear  to  advise  you,  I  want  you 
to  do  right,  not  that  I  think  it  would  be  wrong  to  join  them, — 
oh,  no;  their  Constitution,  etc.,  etc.,  and  your  own  position, 
would  be  more  in  unison  with  your  views  of  the  truth. 

Sunday  evening,  March  20,  '53. 
My  own  dear  William  — 

I  had  no  intention  to  write  this  when  I  began,  but  it  is  out 
of  the  abundance  of  my  heart.  Oh,  my  Love,  I  have  felt 
acutely  about  you,  I  mean  your  soul.  I  rejoice  exceedingly  to 
hear  how  the  Lord  is  blessing  your  labours,  but  as  I  stand  at  a 
distance  and  contemplate  the  scene  of  action  and  all  the  cir- 
cumstances attending  it,  I  tremble  with  apprehension  for  the 
object  most  beloved  and  nearest  (except,  I  trust,  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  honour  of  my  Redeemer)  my  heart.  I  know  how 
possible  it  is  to  preach  and  pray  and  sing,  and  even  shout, 
while  the  heart  is  not  right  with  God.  I  know  how  popularity 
and  prosperity  have  a  tendency  to  elate  and  exalt  self,  if  the 
heart  is  not  humble  before  God.  I  know  how  Satan  takes 
advantage  of  these  things  to  work  out  the  destruction  (if  possi- 
ble) of  one  whom  the  Lord  uses  to  pull  down  the  strongholds 
of  his  kingdom,  and  all  these  considerations  make  me  tremble, 
and  weep,  and  pray  for  you,  my  dearest  Love,  that  you  may  be 
able  to  overcome  all  his  devices,  and  having  done  all,  to  stand, 
not  in  your  own  strength  but  in  humble  dependence  on  Him 
who  worketh  "  all  in  all."  Allow  me,  dearest,  to  caution  you 
against  indulging  ambition  to  be  either  a  revivalist  or  anything 
else ;  try  to  get  into  that  happy  frame  of  mind  to  be  satisfied  if 
Christ  be  exalted,  even  if  it  be  only  by  compelling  you  to  lie  at 
the  foot  of  the  Cross  and  look  upon  Him.  H  your  happiness  of 
soul  comes  to  depend  on  the  excitement  of  active  service,  what ! 
if  God  should  lay  His  hand  upon  you  and  give  you  the  cup  of 
suffering  instead  of  labour!  Nothing  but  a  heart  in  unison 
with  His,  and  a  will  perfectly  subdued,  can  then  give  peace. 

Watch    against    mere    animal    excitement    in    your    revival 


xiii]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  163 

services.  I  don't  use  the  term  in  the  sense  in  which  anti- 
rcvivahsts  woukl  use  it,  hut  onl)'  in  the  sense  which  Finney 
himself  woukl  use  it ;  rememhcr  Caughey's  silent,  soft,  heavenly 
carriage ;  he  did  not  shout,  there  was  no  necessity ;  he  had  a 
more  potent  weapon  at  command  than  noise.  I  never  did  like 
noise  and  confusion,  only  so  far  as  I  believed  it  to  be  the 
natural  expression  of  deep  anxiety  wrought  by  the  Holy  Ghost ; 
such  as  the  cries  of  the  jailor,  etc.,  etc. ;  of  such  noise,  produced 
by  such  agency,  the  more  the  better.  But,  my  Love,  I  do  think 
noise  made  by  the  preacher  and  the  Christians  in  the  church  is 
productive  of  evil  only.  As  to  that  Isaac  Marsden,  he  might  be 
sincere,  but  exceedingly  injudicious  and  violent;  I  would  not 
attend  one  of  his  prayer  meetings  on  any  account.  I  don't 
believe  the  Gospel  needs  such  roaring  and  foaming  to  make  it 
effective,  and  to  some  minds  it  would  make  it  appear  ridiculous, 
and  bar  them  against  its  reception  for  ever.  There  was  nothing 
of  this  kind  in  that  most  powerful  sermon  ever  preached  by 
Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost ;  the  noise  was  made  by  the 
people  pricked  to  the  heart,  and  was  the  effect  of  that  plain, 
powerful,  but  calm  and  reasonable  appeal  to  their  consciences, 
and  not  of  Peter's  own  creating.  This  is  in  my  opinion  the 
natural  order  of  a  revival.  I  should  not  have  troubled  you  with 
my  views  on  the  subject  (indeed  I  think  you  know  them  pretty 
fully ;  if  not,  you  will  find  them  exactly  in  Finney's  Lectures  on 
Revivals,  which  I  consider  the  most  beautiful  and  common- 
sense  work  on  the  subject  I  ever  read),  only  that  you  have  been 
wondering  how  I  shall  enter  into  it  with  you. 

My  dear,  I  trust,  as  far  as  I  have  ability  and  grace,  I  shall 
be  ready  to  strengthen  your  hands  in  the  glorious  work,  by 
taking  under  my  care  to  enlighten  and  guard  and  feed  the  lambs 
brought  in  under  your  ministry.  I  believe  in  instantaneous  con- 
version as  firmly  as  you  do ;  at  the  same  time  I  believe  that  half 
of  what  is  called  conversion  is  nothing  of  the  kind,  and  there 
is  no  calculating  the  evil  results  of  deception  in  a  matter  so 
momentous.  Great  caution  is  necessary  in  dealing  with  in- 
quirers, especially  the  young.  My  own  brother  was  much  in- 
jured through  injudicious  treatment  in  this  respect.  He  went 
one  Sunday  evening  to  hear  Mr.  Richardson  at  Vauxhall.  He 
was  quite  unconcerned  when  he  went,  but  was  much  wrought 
upon  under  the  sermon  and  induced  to  go  to  the  communion 
rail,  where  he  professed  to  find  peace.  There  certainly  was  a 
change  in  him  for  a  short  time,  but,  alas !  there  was  no  founda- 
tion, and  in  a  week  or  two  the  fair  blossoms  faded,  and  though 
he  continued  to  meet  in  class,  his  conduct  was  far  ivorse  than 
it  had  ever  been  before,  he  was  more  impatient  of  restraint  and 
reproof,  in  fact  his  heart  was  closed  against  conviction  by  the 
vain  idea  that  he  was  converted.  I  only  tell  you  this  to  illus- 
trate what  I  mean,  and  not  in  any  way  to  speak  ill  of  my  dear 


i64  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

brother.  Poor  boy,  he  was  young  and  ignorant  in  spiritual 
things,  and  therefore  easily  deceived ;  I  hope  and  pray  that  the 
Spirit  of  God  will  become  his  instructor,  and  reveal  to  him  the 
true  state  of  his  heart,  and  the  broad  and  deep  requirements 
of  His  law.  I  have  told  you  his  case  as  one  instance  out  of 
scores  of  a  similar  kind,  to  caution  you  against  pressing  a  con- 
fession of  faith  in  Christ  before  the  mind  is  thoroughly  en- 
lightened and  the  soul  fully  broken  down.  Read  Finney's 
directions  for  the  treatment  of  penitents ;  they  are  excellent, 
the  best  part  of  the  work ;  if  you  are  not  well  acquainted  with 
them  be  sure  to  read  them.  They  are  in  his  Lectures  on  Re- 
vivals, and  don't  forget  to  recommend  James's  Anxious  En- 
quirer to  young  penitents ;  it  is  worth  its  weight  (nay,  far  more 
than  that)  in  gold. 

I  know  you  will  rightly  estimate  what  I  have  written ;  don't 
think  that  I  consider  your  danger  greater  than  my  oivn  would 
be  if  placed  in  your  circumstances ;  alas,  /  of  all  beings  should 
be  most  in  danger  of  being  vainglorious  and  self -sufficient,  and 
perhaps  it  is  because  I  feel  this  that  I  am  so  anxious  about 
you.  However,  tell  me,  my  Love,  in  your  next  all  about  your 
soul's  secret  experience;  tell  me  whether  you  attend  faithfully 
to  private  prayer,  and  how  you  feel  when  alone  with  God.  This 
is  the  surest  test  by  which  to  judge  of  your  state,  and  you  never 
needed  it  more  frequently  than  nozv;  the  harass  and  turmoil 
of  business  might  be  less  congenial,  but  depend  on  it,  my  dear, 
it  was  not  more  dangerous  to  your  soul's  true  interest.  It  was 
not  more  necessary  to  watch  and  pray  then  than  it  is  now.  If 
you  get  yours  quite  right  with  God  and  keep  it  so,  nothing 
can  hinder  you  from  being  a  useful  man,  and  I  believe  God 
will  signally  own  you  as  His  servant ;  but  if  you  keep  back 
anything  from  God,  if  you  suffer  self  to  share  the  glory.  He 
will  frustrate  your  designs  and  spoil  your  happiness.  Do,  my 
Love,  get  all  condemnation  cleared  away,  and  be  able  to  look 
straight  to  the  Throne  for  your  encouragement  and  reward, 
and  then  all  you  can  desire  while  your  heart  is  partially  carnal 
will  then  be  given  you,  though  not  valued  for  its  own  sake; 
like  Solomon,  who,  when  he  desired  simply  and  singly  wisdom, 
heavenly  wisdom,  gained  both  riches  and  honour  and  glory  as 
an  overplus.  God  is  so  good.  If  we  could  only  see  Him  as 
He  is,  we  should  desire  nothing  beside  Him  either  in  earth  or 
heaven.  Oh,  let  us  pray  and  watch  to  get  our  eyes  fully 
opened  to  behold  His  beauty,  and  singly  fixed  on  His  glory. 
Oh,  it  is  a  glorious  state  to  be  in : 

The  bliss  of  those  who  fidly  dwell, 

Fully  in  Him  believe. 
Is  more  than  angel  tongues  can  tell, 

Or  angel  minds  conceive. 


xin]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  165 

I  know  it  is,  and  I  hope  yet  again  to  experience  it,  "  then  will 
I  teach  transgressors  His  ways"  (His  ways  of  marvellous 
mercy,  truth,  love,  and  faithfulness  towards  sinful  man), 
"  I  will  declare  His  faithfulness,  and  sinners  shall  be  converted 
to  Him." 

Brixton,  March  30,  '53. 

My  dearest  William  —  Your  letter  came  to  hand  about  an 
hour  since,  and  I  can  attend  to  nothing  till  I  have  written  you  a 
line  in  reply.  I  never  was  more  surprised  in  my  life  than  on 
reading  it  to  find  the  aspect  my  last  seemed  to  wear  in  your  eyes. 
I  am  sure,  dearest,  the  state  of  your  ozvn  mind  makes  all  the 
difference  to  your  interpretation  of  my  letters.  You  should 
not  read  mine  as  you  would  a  stranger's,  you  should  bear  in 
mind  what  I  am,  and  what  a  sentiment  means  when  dictated  by 
Love  and  a  deep  and  absorbing  desire  that  you  should  appear 
in  the  eyes  of  others  as  a  man  of  God  "  thoroughly  furnished 
to  every  good  work,"  and  in  the  sight  of  God  as  one  pure  and 
upright  in  heart  seeking  only  His  glory.  I  zvas  not  when  I 
wrote  "dreadfully  put  about  and  harassed  in  my  mind,"  but 
the  Spirit  of  God  had  been  operating  powerfully  upon  my 
heart,  and  I  felt  afresh  awakened  to  the  superiority  and  im- 
portance of  spiritual  things,  and  of  course  as  I  felt  it  for  my- 
self I  felt  it  for  you;  but  I  think  I  spoke  tenderly  and  care- 
fully ;  as  to  scolding,  I  never  felt  less  like  it  than  when  I  wrote 
that  letter,  for  my  whole  soul  was  melted  into  tenderness  and 
self-abasement.  Do  read  it  again  the  first  opportunity  and 
then  read  yours  which  I  have  enclosed ;  not,  my  Love,  in  a 
spirit  of  retaliation,  but  only  that  you  may  read  it  now  your 
mind  is  calmer.  You  could  not  possibly  construe  what  I  said 
as  against  revivals,  or  even  in  depreciation  of  them,  when  I  so 
carefully  guarded  my  words,  and  I  don't  know  why  you  can- 
not understand  it,  I  think  it  was  plain  enough.  But  I  see  you 
are  dreadfully  harassed,  and  most  deeply  do  I  sympathize 
with  you ;  indeed,  for  me  to  be  happy  while  I  think  you  are  not 
so  is  impossible;  though  I  was  not  unhappy  last  week.  I  re- 
joiced with  you  in  your  prosperity  ;  but  at  the  same  time  I  know 
even  that  was  dangerous,  and  expressed  the  anxiety  I  felt, 
thinking  you  would  rightly  understand  me,  but  I  perceive  you 
cannot  bear  it ;  well,  dearest,  scold  me  if  you  like,  blame  me 
or  what  else  you  will,  but  faithful  as  well  as  loving  I  must  ever 
be ;  my  conscience  compels  me,  and  the  more  I  love  you  the 
more  I  feel  it  a  duty. 

As  to  my  estimate  of  you,  surely  you  don't  feel  a  fear  that  it 
is  too  low,  while  I  am  willing  to  give  my  happiness  to  so  great 
an  extent  into  your  keeping ;  then  don't  call  it  scolding  or 
seem  hurt  when  I  give  you  a  gentle  caution  and  try  to  e.xcite 
you   to   more   heart   consecration   to   your   Father   and    mine. 


i66  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

while  at  the  same  time  I  confess  to  you  my  own  unfaithful- 
ness and  deplore  my  want  of  love  to  the  Saviour,  and  with  all 
sincerity  declare  the  consciousness  I  have  of  my  own  unfitness 
thus  to  stimulate  you.  When  you  seem  to  think  me  officious  or 
bitter,  or  unnecessarily  anxious,  it  makes  it  doubly  painful  and 
cuts  to  my  very  soul.  As  to  our  being  separated  in  the  sphere 
of  our  action  in  the  Church,  I  can  only  say  I  never  dreamed  of 
such  a  thing.  /  hope  for  perfect  unity  and  fellowship  in  all 
plans,  and  least  of  all  should  I  think  of  separation  in  the 
Church  of  God. 

Monday  evening,  June  13,  '53. 

My  own  dear  William  —  I  sincerely  thank  you  for  your 
kind  note  of  Saturday,  it  did  me  good  this  morning.  I  like  it 
better  than  either  of  last  week's,  there  is  more  soul  in  it,  and 
only  one  fault,  viz.  being  too  short.  But  I  know  your  time  is 
precious,  and  therefore  will  not  complain.  Bless  you,  I  am 
glad  you  so  fully  reciprocate  the  sentiments  in  my  last,  it  re- 
joices my  soul  and  fills  me  with  hope  to  hear  you  say  so,  but 
I  am  sorry  you  do  not  write  a  little  more  in  answer  to  my  let- 
ters. I  do  not  mean,  dearest,  that  you  should  notice  every- 
thing ;  that  would  be  a  task  my  love  would  not  impose ;  but 
some  things  I  often  wish  you  would  take  up  and  write  a  few 
words  in  the  way  of  answer;  you  can  easily  guess  what  they 
are.  You  promised  me  to  write  a  line  sometimes  in  pencil 
after  retiring  for  the  night,  or  when  walking  by  the  wayside. 
Do  sometimes,  there's  a  dear.  A  stray  thought,  especially 
when  tender  and  heavenly,  will  be  to  me  a  gem  of  great  value. 
Do  not  interpret  this  as  finding  fault;  it  is  not;  it  is  only  a  gen- 
tle remembrance.  I  know  how  your  time  is  occupied  and 
your  mind  also,  and  do  most  fully  appreciate  your  kindness  in 
writing  so  often.  The  unexpected  knock  of  the  postman  al- 
ways excites  feelings  of  the  tenderest  affection  towards  you, 
and  causes  me  to  bless  you  with  increased  fervency  of  soul, 
so  true  is  Tupper's  proverb,  "  A  letter  timely  writ  is  as  a  rivet 
to  the  chain  of  affection,  and  a  letter  untimely  delayed  is  as 
rust  to  the  solder." 

I  was  very  glad  to  hear  you  got  on  so  well  at  the  School 
feast;  you  ask  me  for  some  ideas  for  speeches  on  such  occa- 
sions. I  am  sure  I  can  send  you  nothing  worth  having,  and 
besides  I  do  not  know  the  style  of  speaking  acceptable ;  I  sup- 
pose the  design,  importance,  and  results  of  Sabbath  School 
teaching  form  the  principal  topics,  and  I  am  sure  you  know 
far  more  on  these  subjects  than  I  do.  My  soul  feels  deeply 
enough  the  vast  importance  of  good  moral  culture  for  the 
youthful  mind,  but  from  the  specimens  I  have  seen  of  Sunday 
Schools,  I  fear  they  are  to  a  great  extent  ineffective ;  but  I 
hope  I  have  not  seen  fair  specimens ;  I  don't  think  I  have. 


xin]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  167 

However,  it  seems  to  nie  that  the  Church  generally  wants 
pressing  home  upon  its  conscience  the  responsibility  resting 
upon  it  with  regard  to  the  rising  generation ;  it  should  be  made 
to  feel  this  one  fact,  that  of  all  spheres  of  labour  this  is  the 
most  important,  of  all  interests  at  home  or  abroad  this  is  the 
most  momentous ;  of  all  its  efforts  for  the  extension  of  Chris- 
tianity and  the  glory  of  God,  this  promises  the  largest  amount 
of  success,  because  the  present  generation  is  passing  away  and 
will  inevitably  pass  away  without  being  thoroughly  impreg- 
nated with  Divine  truth,  and  whether  the  next  will  come  upon 
the  stage  of  action  either  so  impregnated  or  not,  it  rests  with 
the  Church  to  determine.  Fifty  years  hence  where  will  be 
the  men  and  women  who  are  now  the  adult  population  of  our 
world  ?  Almost  without  exception  swept  off  one  by  one ;  like 
the  flow^ers  in  Autumn,  they  will  have  ceased  to  live  and  move 
and  think,  their  influence  will  have  died  with  them,  and  but  a 
few  eminent  names  will  survive  the  wreck ;  but  the  children 
who  now  hang  upon  the  breast  and  prattle  on  the  knee  will 
then  be  the  living,  reasoning,  influential  men  and  women  of 
the  world,  and  the  parents  of  future  generations ;  destined  per- 
haps in  the  providence  of  God  to  wield  a  mightier  influence  for 
good  or  evil  than  any  which  have  preceded  them  since  the 
ocean  of  human  life  rolled  over  our  earth;  how  transcendently 
important  then  is  it  to  train  up  these  young  beings  (the  foun- 
tains of  so  much  future  influence  and  power)  in  the  right 
way,  how  important  to  impart  early  (before  the  storms  of  in- 
iquity beat  on  their  defenceless  souls  and  render  them  im- 
pervious to  holy  impressions)  right  principles  of  action,  light 
for  the  conscience,  food  for  the  soul,  and  knowledge  for  the 
mind.  I  feel  this  too  deeply  to  express  half  what  I  feel,  if  I 
could  do  so  I  could  make  a  speech  myself,  but  my  views  on  this 
subject  are  too  large  to  be  conveyed  in  words.  I  never  look 
at  a  little  child  but  I  feel  unutterable  things:  What  is  he? 
What  will  he  become,  and  what  might  he  be?  What  eternal 
destiny  awaits  the  immortal  jewel  lodged  in  that  beautiful 
little  casket?  What  influences  will  gather  round  it  in  this 
life's  pilgrimage?  Wha>t  friends  will  aid  it?  What  foes  try 
to  ruin  it?  are  questions  my  soul  shrinks  from  answering  even 
to  itself. 

Wednesday  evening,  June,  '53. 
My  beloved  William  —  ...  I  am  glad  you,  my  Love,  are 
from  under  their  dominion.  Depend  upon  it  that  is  an  iron 
rule  which  stifles  conscience  and  binds  the  soul ;  poor,  nay, 
noble  Kilham  had  courage  to  resist  it,  but  in  doing  so  he 
proved  its  strength  and  endured  its  inflictions.  Many  men 
have  not  such  courage,  and  doubtless  many  amongst  them,  even 
their  best  men,  are  bowed  down  in  spirit  and  sorely  oppressed, 
not  daring  to  open  their  mouths.     While  such  powerful,  or- 


1 68  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

ganized  bodies  exist  with  so  many  of  the  elements  of  pure 
despotism  in  their  constitution,  it  may  be  expedient  and  even 
necessary  for  other  large  and  more  liberally  constituted  bodies 
to  exist  in  order  to  compete  with  them  and  prevent  their  com- 
plete ascendancy  if  this  be  God's  method ;  the  amalgamation 
of  the  splits  of  Methodism  must  be  desirable,  but  it  wants  deep 
consideration.  Be  cautious,  my  Love,  let  no  personal  benefit 
weigh  an  atom  with  you.  First  be  ftilly  persuaded  in  your  ozvn 
mind  that  such  a  step  would  be  for  the  good  of  man  and  the 
glory  of  God,  and  then  work  for  it  w-ith  all  the  skill  and 
caution  necessary,  but  if  not  fully  persuaded  and  yet  not  sat- 
isfied to  remain  in  your  present  position  amongst  the  Reformers, 
then  consider  whether  you  had  better  seek  for  yourself  alone 
(leaving  the  movement  out  of  the  question)  admission  amongst 
them,  think  over  their  rules  and  learn  as  much  as  possible 
about  the  way  in  which  they  are  carried  out,  and  lay  the  matter 
continually  and  earnestly  before  God,  for  it  is  an  important 
matter  to  submit  yourself  to  a  conference  of  any  kind;  doubt- 
less it  would  be  to  our  temporal  comfort ;  I  feel  this,  but  that 
is  secondary.  Be  fully  satisfied  it  is  your  way,  and  then  we  can 
rejoice  in  our  prosperity  without  any  misgivings  as  to  the  path 
of  duty. 

Bless  you  a  thousand  times,  I  only  want  to  see  you  happy 
and  useful,  and  I  care  not  where  or  how,  provided  it  be  ac- 
cording to  God's  will.  You  will  excuse  all  this  advice,  etc. 
I  did  not  think  of  writing  thus,  but  the  subject  agitates  my 
heart  and  so  I  could  not  but  give  it  utterance.  Those  thought- 
fully expressed  words  about  preferring  to  go  back  to  business 
to  staying  with  the  Reformers  have  made  me  feel  anxious, 
not  because  I  wish  you  to  remain  in  your  present  position,  nor 
because  it  may  defer  our  union,  no,  only  because  I  fear  you 
should  get  wrong,  though  I  very  much  question  whether  the 
movement  is  exactly  your  sphere.  You  must  consider  the  law 
of  your  own  mind.  Do  pray  very  earnestly  about  it,  seek 
specially  and  solemnly  God's  guidance ;  search  your  heart  be- 
fore Him  in  secret,  be  determined,  bring  your  soul  to  it  in 
spite  of  all  obstacles,  and  I  am  sure  He  will  direct  you.  I 
have  begun  to  pray  about  it  regularly.  As  to  business,  I  be- 
lieve you  may  just  as  faithfully  serve  God  in  it  as  in  the 
Ministry ;  whichever  is  your  right  place  there  you  can  best 
serve  Him,  and  He  knows  which  is;  and  more.  He  can  in 
defiance  of  circumstances  put  you  in  it.  Oh  that  He  may  thus 
graciously  fix  the  bounds  of  your  habitation  and  choose  our 
inheritance  for  us;  do  not  take  any  steps  in  order  to  marry 
which  you  would  not  take  if  you  did  not  know  me.  I  hope 
Mr.  L.  does  not  think  that  I  am  in  a  hurry  to  be  married,  and 
have  unsettled  your  mind  because  you  say,  he  thinks  zve  want 
to  get  married.     Much  as  I  feel  this  separation  and  absence  I 


xiii]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  169 

am  willing,  nay,  desirous  to  endure  it  as  long  as  the  Lord 
wills,  and  that  1  feel  it  so  much  is  the  fault  of  my  heart  (if 
it  is  a  fault)  and  not  of  my  judgment. 

1  shall  swell  this  to  the  usual  length ;  I  often  think  of  the 
Frenchman's  apology  for  a  long  letter,  viz.  "  excuse  the  length 
of  this,  I  have  not  time  to  make  it  shorter."  I  feel  it  is  most 
appropriate  to  me,  for  to  prune  and  digest  mine  would  take 
far  longer  than  to  write  them  as  I  do. 

Thursdav  afternoon. —  Aly  dearest  Love,  in  reading  over  the 
preceding,  it  struck  me  that  you  might  gather  from  it  some 
objection  on  my  part  to  your  entering  the  New  Connexion, 
therefore  I  refer  to  the  subject  again  to  assure  you  that  I  have 
not;  I  only  wish  you  to  act  as  your  judgment  and  conscience 
dictate  without  reference  to  marrying;  do  not  think  of  that 
otherwise  than  as  God  would  approve ;  I  mean,  do  not  let  your 
desire  tozvards  it  cause  you  to  take  any  step  your  conscience 
does  not  fully  approve.  Of  course  if  you  see  a  thing  to  be 
right,  then  there  is  no  harm  in  considering  its  temporal  ad- 
vantages, but  I  need  not  attempt  to  instruct  you,  neither  need 
I  fear  the  integrity  of  your  motives.  I  should  like  to  see  your 
letter  to  The  Times  if  it  is  inserted.  How  is  it  signed?  Send 
me  word. 

I  hope  you  are  studying;  you  do  not  mention  it.  Be  deter- 
mined to  make  the  most  of  every  moment ;  do  not  let  trifles 
interrupt  your  study  hours  and  attention.  Do,  my  Love,  work 
hard  for  yourself  so  that  you  may  make  many  rich.  Remem- 
ber time  flies,  a  moment  at  a  time.  Oh  let  us  use  the  moments. 
I  am  doing  so,  and  consequently  am  progressing,  at  least  a  lit- 
tle, according  to  my  ability.  I  am  much  encouraged  about  the 
music. 

Wednesday  evening,  June,  '53. 
My  own  dear  Love  —  Oh  how  I  should  like  to  see  you  to- 
night and  hear  you  speak  to  me  in  tones  of  sweet  affection  and 
encouragement.  You  will  be  sorry  to  hear  that  I  have  felt  very 
low  to-day  and  yesterday ;  the  principal  cause  of  this  depres- 
sion is  a  deep  and  painful  sense  of  my  own  unfitness  to  enter 
upon  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  life ;  I  feel  my  weakness 
and  deficiencies  most  bitterly,  and  have  shed  some  bitter  tears 
because  of  it.  I  have  confidence  in  you  as  to  battling  with  the 
trials  of  life,  or  I  think  I  should  sink  into  despair,  for  I  feel  I 
am  not  fit  for  the  world ;  but  you  will  be  my  defence  and  shield, 
my  prop  and  succour,  will  you  not,  dearest?  You  will  bear 
with  my  weaknesses  and  faults,  hush  my  fears,  strengthen  my 
hopes  and  efforts,  and  try  to  enter  into  the  indefinable  emo- 
tions of  my  sensitive  heart.  I  shall  at  least  have  one  being  in 
the  world  able  to  sympathize  with  my  soul's  feelings  and  to 


170  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

understand  -the  peculiarities  of  my  mind  and  heart.  Oh  how 
sweet!  and  that  being  holding  the  most  endearing  of  rela- 
tionships, bound  to  me  by  the  tenderest  ties ;  bless  you,  I  think 
I  need  not  fear  the  depth  of  your  sympathy,  the  strength  or 
durability  of  your  affection;  if  I  did  fear  either  I  should  be 
most  unhappy,  but  I  do  not ;  I  believe  you  capable  of  more  than 
I  once  did;  I  think  we  shall  be  one  in  heart  and  soul,  and  oh 
this  is  everything;  in  body  we  shall  have  continually  and  pain- 
fully to  part,  but  in  spirit  we  may  alzuays  be  united. 

I  think  a  great  deal  about  your  being  out  so  much,  I  do 
hope  your  present  unsettled  and  whirlabout  life  will  not  beget 
a  distaste  for  pure  domestic  home  bliss,  and  oh  I  do  trust,  that 
before  we  have  a  home  Providence  will  make  it  possible  for 
you  to  be  more  in  it.  Bless  you,  I  feel  indescribable  things 
to-night,  my  soul  is  so  full  I  cannot  write  at  all  collectedly. 
Oh,  if  I  could  but  pour  it  into  your  ear;  it  does  seem  hard 
just  now  to  be  parted.  I  feel  as  though  I  could  fly  to  you,  my 
whole  soul  is  drawn  towards  you,  if  I  could  explain  zvhat  I 
feel,  and  hozv  I  feel,  and  why  I  feel,  and  all  I  feel,  I  am  sure 
you  would  sympathize  with  me  and  clasp  me  more  tenderly 
to  your  heart  than  ever  you  did  before.  I  say  this  because  I 
know,  that  although  perhaps  I  feel  too  deeply,  and  too  keenly, 
yet  the  class  of  feelings  and  their  causes  and  objects  are  pleas- 
ing to  God,  they  are  not  selfish  but  purest  benevolence,  but  oh, 
they  are  painful  in  the  extreme. 

Pray  for  me.  I  will  not  write  thus,  perhaps  it  grieves  you, 
though  I  hope  not.  Do  not  call  it  sentimentalism,  dearest,  it 
is  the  only  reality  of  life;  what  are  all  the  so-called  realities 
of  this  world  when  compared  with  one  pure  affection,  one  re- 
fined emotion  of  one  human  soul?  Their  reality  fades  like 
the  bubble  on  the  wave ;  soul,  and  spiritual  things  are  the  only 
realities  we  have  to  do  with,  and  all  relating  to  them  are  to  us 
of  paramount  importance.  Let  us  estimate  everything  accord- 
ing to  its  influence  on  each  other's  mind  and  heart;  to  inflict 
bodily  suffering  were  a  kindness  compared  with  distress  of 
mind  and  those  who  can  feel  deepest  themselves  will  be  most 
chary  of  the  feelings  of  those  they  love.  May  the  Lord  give 
us  grace  to  study  each  other,  and  love  as  He  has  enjoined.  I 
often  wonder  whether  others  feel  on  these  subjects  as  I  do;  if 
they  did,  surely  there  would  be  more  happy  unions.  I  scarce 
ever  realize  the  happiness,  for  thinking  of  the  duties  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  married  life;  I  am  so  anxious  to  be  a  good 
wife  and  mother,  and  cannot  think  of  the  joy  of  being  either. 
Never  mind,  dearest,  my  heart  will  not  be  the  less  sensible  of 
the  joy  when  it  comes,  and  perhaps  better  prepared  for  it. 
Oh  for  grace  to  do  my  duty  to  you  in  all  respects,  and  to  those 
whom  God  may  give  us,  and  to  the  Church,  and  to  the  world, 
and  to  myself,  and  thus  doing  it  in  all  the  relations  of  life  to 


xin]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  171 

serve  my  God  in  serving  His  chosen  ones,  the  service  He  Him- 
self has  required. 

Monday  night,  June,  '53. 
My  own  dear  William  —  How  I  should  Hke  to  see  you  to- 
night and  tell  you  lots  of  feelings,  thoughts,  hopes,  and  fears 
which  would  take  too  much  time  and  patience  to  write ;  pa- 
tience is  a  thing  I  am  very  deficient  in.  Oh  for  more  of  it. 
I  have  felt  exceedingly  irritable  to-day,  the  music  has  tried  me 
almost  beyond  endurance.  I  could  freely  abandon  it  and 
never  touch  it  more.  I  fear  the  result  will  never  repay  the 
time  and  labour.  Once  to-day  I  raised  my  eyes  from  the 
music  and  through  some  bitter  tears  looked  at  your  likeness, 
and  said  to  myself,  "  William,  I  do  this  for  thee."  Yes,  all 
the  other  motives  would  fail  to  urge  me  forward ;  for  no  other 
being  could  I  endure  the  drudgery,  but  you  like  it,  it  will  make 
hotne  a  happier  place  to  you,  it  will  help  to  raise  our  souls  to 
heaven,  so  I  will  persevere  in  my  arduous  undertaking;  it  is 
an  arduous  one,  everybody  considers  it  so.  Miss  .  .  .  never 
knew  any  one  begin  to  learn  after  they  were  grown  up,  but  I 
will  for  your  dear  sake  go  on.  Measure  my  love  for  you  by 
this  standard ;  think  of  three  and  four  hours  a  day,  self-deny- 
ing toil,  especially  trying  to  one  whose  nerves  have  been  shat- 
tered and  whose  powers  of  application  and  endurance  weak- 
ened by  long  and  wearing  pain,  and  then  say  whether  the  love 
that  prompts  it  is  a  trifle ;  but  I  know  you  estimate  my  affec- 
tion. I  am  quite  happy  on  that  subject  now.  Bless  you.  I 
do  hope  we  shall  be  dear  to  each  other  as  the  apple  of  an  eye. 
If  I  thought  that  you  soberly  think  what  you  say  about  my  hav- 
ing no  faults  and  infirmities  to  bear  with,  I  should  indeed  be 
unhappy,  and  begin  to  think  I  had  unintentionally  given  you  a 
false  view  of  my  character.  Believe  me,  dearest  (and  I  know 
myself  better  than  any  one  else  knows  me),  I  have  as  many  as 
will  require  a  great  deal  of  grace,  deep  affection  and  much  pa- 
tience to  endure,  so  set  about  cultivating  these  virtues  as 
quickly  and  effectually  as  possible. 

Tuesday  afternoon. —  Thank  you,  darling,  for  the  kind  words 
contained  in  yours  this  morning ;  I  had  been  thinking  that  I  had 
written  too  passionately  last  night  and  that  I  ought  to  restrain 
the  tide  of  feeling  more  than  I  do  in  writing  to  you ;  but  no, 
now  you  write  so  affectionately  I  will  let  it  root  on  and  push 
out,  just  as  it  will,  without  seeking  to  cool  or  restrain  it,  so  that 
you  may  know  of  what  I  am  made.  Bless  you,  you  have  no 
reason  to  fear  about  true  conjugal  bliss  if  your  love  is  only 
deep  and  fervent;  I  think  I  have  a  soul  capable  of  enjoying 
and  yielding  as  much  as  most ;  but  remember  I  have  its  almost 
invarial:)le  failings,  capable  of  deepest  feeling  on  one  subject  as 
well  as  another,  therefore  liable  to  anger  as  well  as  love.     But 


172  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

I  told  you  enough  of  this  last  night,  and  though  I  have  no  new 
thoughts  to  send  you  would  feel  disappointed  on  Wednesday 
morning  if  there  was  no  letter,  and  perhaps  anxious  about  the 
fate  of  your  Saturday's  note. 

July  i8,  '53. 

You  ask  me  about  Miss  M.  She  is  a  simple-hearted,  pretty, 
pleasant  girl ;  I  suppose  well  educated ;  can  play  very  nicely. 
I  like  her  very  much  as  far  as  she  goes ;  I  appreciate  true  sim- 
plicity and  sincerity  of  character  wherever  I  find  it,  and  I  think 
she  possesses  it.  She  is  not  in  the  least  intellectual,  quite 
ordinary  in  capacity  and  not  very  ladylike  in  manners,  though 
she  has  been  at  school  four  years ;  but  character  is  everything. 
I  like  her  character  far,  far  better  than  Mr.  Hale's  sisters  who 
are  more  polished.  You  will  not  misunderstand  me  when  I 
say  that  I  never  yet  met  with  a  female  friend  able  to  understand 
or  appreciate  my  views  and  feelings  on  the  great  subjects  which 
appear  to  me  the  only  realities  of  life ;  all  whom  I  know  seem 
to  live  in  a  different  world ;  they  look  not  at  the  future,  they 
seem  to  be  shut  up  in  the  present  little  paltry  things  of  every- 
day life ;  I  am  grieved  that  it  is  so ;  the  mothers  of  humanity 
want  different  training ;  surely  the  day  is  dawning ;  I  believe 
it  is;  may  it  rapidly  progress.  I  often  have  wished  I  had  one 
able  to  sympathize  with  my  views  and  reciprocate  them,  but 
now  I  have  you  I  do  not  mind  so  much. 

/  am  delighted;  it  makes  me  happy  to  hear  you  speak  as  you 
do  about  home.  Yes,  if  you  will  seek  home,  love  home,  be 
happy  at  home,  I  will  spend  my  energies  in  trying  to  make  it 
a  more  than  ordinary  one;  it  shall,  if  my  ability  can  do  it,  be 
a  spot  sunny  and  bright,  pure  and  calm,  refined  and  tender,  a 
fit  school  in  which  to  train  immortal  spirits  for  a  holy  and 
glorious  heaven ;  a  fit  resting-place  for  a  spirit  pressed  and 
anxious  about  public  duties ;  but  Oh,  I  know  it  is  easy  to  talk, 
I  feel  how  liable  I  am  to  fall  short;  but  it  is  well  to  purpose 
right,  to  aim  high,  to  hope  much ;  yes,  we  will  make  home  to 
each  other  the  brightest  spot  on  earth,  we  will  be  tender, 
thoughtful,  loving,  and  forbearing,  will  we  not?  yes,  we  will. 

Tuesday  night,  August  2,  '53. 
My  own  dear  Love  —  I  wept  tears  of  gratitude  and  joy 
this  morning  over  your  kind  note.  Oh  how  my  soul  praised 
God  for  His  preserving  mercy ;  bless  you,  how  I  should  like  to 
nurse  you,  and  press  your  poor  bruised  face  to  mine.  These 
accidents  make  me  feel  very  anxious ;  surely,  surely,  they  are 
not  going  to  be  frequent  occurrences.  You  were  not  to  blame 
this  time,  as  you  had  no  warning  beforehand,  but  my  Love, 
never  venture  behind  that  horse  again;  it  is  wonderful  if  you 


xni]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  173 

have  escaped  serious  injury,  but  I  hardly  feel  satisfied  on  that 
subject;  I  do  hope  you  have  been  to  a  doctor.  After  such  a 
violent  shaking  you  ought  to  have  some  suitable  medicine. 
Now  if  you  have  not  been  to  one,  be  sure  and  do  so.  I  hope 
you  will  rest  till  you  are  well,  it  tries  me  sadly  to  think  of  you 
taking  your  appointments  in  that  state ;  I  think  the  local  preach- 
ers must  be  rather  inhuman  if  they  are  not  willing  to  supply 
for  you  in  such  a  case,  and  you  really  are  imprudent  if  you  do 
not  let  them,  if  they  are  willing;  but  I  trust  you  are  better 
quite,  by  this  time.  I  should  have  written  to-day  if  I  had  not 
posted  one  yesterday.  I  mistook  Thursday  for  Tuesday  in 
Saturday's  letter,  and  thought  you  would  be  home  on  Tuesday. 
I  hope  the  letter  came  before  you  left  home  this  morning.  I 
have  felt  very  tenderly  about  you  all  day.  Oh  what  a  mercy 
you  were  not  killed  or  some  of  your  limbs  broken ;  if  you  had 
been  killed  as  scores  have  been  in  a  similar  way,  how  would  it 
have  been  with  your  soidf  I  have  thought  much  about  the 
temptation  you  mentioned  in  the  scrap  on  Saturday,  about 
the  reality  of  spiritual  things,  you  said  it  was  something  more 
than  temptation.  No!  it  is  not,  neither  is  it  peculiar  to  you;  it 
is  common  to  all.  I  have  had  it  presented,  as  almost  every 
other  which  Satan  has  in  his  hellish  treasury,  but  I  think  he 
has  plied  that  with  as  little  effect  a's  any. 

I  always  find  it  best  to  appeal  at  once  to  my  consciousness;  I 
know  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  a  reality  just  as  I  know  I  live,  and 
breathe,  and  think,  because  my  consciousness  testifies  it,  and 
that  is  a  more  powerful  thing  than  Satan's  intellect  or  logic ; 
it  disarms  him  at  once;  on  other  subjects  reasoning  with  him 
has  been  my  bane,  but  on  this  I  never  reason,  I  refer  him  to 
times  and  things  gone  by  and  my  conscience  says  that  was 
real;  if  not  let  me  have  over  again  the  blissful  delusion ;  but  I 
knozv  it  was  real,  for  it  bore  me  up  on  the  threshold  of  eternity, 
and  made  death  my  friend,  there  is  nothing  like  the  light  of 
eternity  to  show  us  zvJiat  is  real  and  what  is  not.  Now,  my 
dear,  how  did  you  feel  when  that  accident  seemed  to  poise  you 
between  life  and  death,  time  and  eternity?  Where  did  Satan 
hide  himself  just  then?  Did  he  come  with  his  foul  sugges- 
tions about  the  delusion  or  mystery  of  godliness  ?  I  think  not, 
he  would  take  care  to  keep  out  of  that  track  when  your  con- 
sciousness was  fully  awake.  Oh,  my  Love,  zvatch!  Satan  is 
a  subtle  foe,  he  knows  just  the  temptations  most  suited  to 
hinder  your  usefulness,  and  he  knows  that  just  in  proportion 
to  your  own  personal  faith  in,  and  experience  of,  the  glorious 
gospel,  will  be  your  success  in  preaching  it  to  others ;  he  knows 
(none  better)  that  it  is  the  preacher  who  can  say  "I  testify 
that  which  /  do  know  and  have  seen  and  handled  of  the  word 
of  life,"  which  is  mighty  through  God  to  the  pulling  down  of 
his  strongholds.     It  is  such  men  he  fears  and  hates,  and  pur- 


174  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

sues ;  but  it  is  such  whom  his  Vanquisher  loves,  trusts,  and 
upholds. 

Oh,  dearest,  be  yon  one  of  them,  be  the  champion  of  real 
godliness,  cost  what  it  may,  knozv  in  your  own  soul  the  mighty 
power  of  the  grace  of  God,  and  then  you  will  preach  it  with 
mvful  influence,  and  abundant  success ;  it  is  real,  more  real 
than  all  beside,  the  mightiest  power  in  this  wonderful  universe ; 
true,  the  mystery  of  godliness  is  great,  but  it  is  given  to  the  real 
followers  of  Jesus  "  to  knozv  the  mysteries  of  the  Kingdom  " 
as  far  as  is  needful  for  them ;  but  Satan  makes  so  much  ado 
about  the  mysteries  of  grace,  as  though  mystery  were  peculiar 
to  it,  when  all  nature  is  enveloped  in  mystery ;  and  what  can 
be  more  mysterious  than  "thought," — what  is  thought,  mem- 
ory, emotion?  How  does  thought  arise?  How  does  memory 
store  up,  and  hide,  and  years  after  pour  forth  its  awful  or 
pleasing  treasures?  Who  can  explain  these  common  opera- 
tions of  the  mind,  and  what  in  the  Bible  is  more  mysterious? 
—  and  yet  I  am  as  conscious  that  I  think  and  remember  as  that 
I  live  and  breathe.  All  is  mystery  around  me,  above  me, 
below  me,  within  me,  before  me,  but  yet  I  believe,  act,  plan, 
live,  according  to  what  I  can  understand,  and  must  be  content  to 
wait  the  solution  of  these  mysteries  at  some  future  enlarge- 
ment and  enlightenment  of  my  faculties. 

All  men  do  this,  as  to  the  natural  world;  they  acknowledge 
their  ignorance,  but  yet  believe  in  it  and  act  upon  it,  as  though 
they  perfectly  understood  every  law  and  operation  and  tend- 
ency; then  if  mystery  is  so  common  in  this  material  world, 
how  absurd  of  Satan  to  urge  it  as  an  objection  to  the  reality  of 
a  system  which  professes  for  its  object  the  perfecting  of  what 
is  confessedly  in  itself  the  most  mysterious  of  all  mysteries, 
viz.  the  human  soul?  If  the  gospel  were  less  mysterious,  it 
would  lack  one  of  the  characters  of  the  Divine  signature ;  if 
it  were  less  simple  and  comprehensible  it  would  lack  adapta- 
tion to  its  great  object.  Oh  then,  let  us  hug  it  to  our  bosoms, 
and  exult  in  its  glorious  simplicity  in  dealing  with  tts;  and  rev- 
erence and  bow  down  before  its  profundity  in  all  that  relates 
to  its  infinite  Author ;  let  us,  my  Love,  experience  what  it  holds 
forth,  and  though  Satan  may  gnash  upon  us  with  his  teeth 
he  cannot  hurt  us.  Let  us  get  a  firmer  footing  upon  this  rock, 
and  we  shall  have  a  real  foundation  to  stand  upon  when  all 
that  is  unreal  is  passing  away. 

But  I  forget  to  whom  1  write ;  you  know  all  this  better  than 
I  do  ;  you  are  not  ignorant  of  Satan's  devices,  nor  of  the  armour 
best  adapted  to  meet  him  in  ;  nevertheless,  what  /  say  may  help 
you  by  way  of  "  stirring  up  your  mind."  May  the  Lord  own 
it  to  this  end,  if  it  be  not  beneath  His  notice.  I  should  not 
have  said  that.  Nothing  is  too  insignificant  for  His  attention 
and  blessing  if  prompted  by  a  pure  motive,  bless   His  holy 


XIII]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  175 

name !  He  loves  to  use  weak  instruments  to  baffle  the  designs 
of  His  proud  foe,  and  perhaps  He  may  deign  to  use  this ; 
whether  or  not,  I  had  no  idea  of  writing  thus  when  I  began ;  I 
have  been  quite  led  off,  and  all  I  intended  to  say  is  left  unsaid. 

Friday  noon,  August  5,  '53. 

Mv  OWN  DEAR  William  —  You  will  be  surprised  to  receive 
a  great  budget  like  this,  after  receiving  two  letters  this  week 
long  enough  for  a  fortnight's  epistles ;  well,  I  cannot  refrain 
from  sending  you  the  enclosed  pamphlet  though  I  know  you 
could  get  one  in  your  book  parcel  for  less  than  the  postage  will 
cost,  but  I  cannot  bear  to  let  you  remain  a  day  without  it. 
Allow  me  to  introduce  the  subject  of  it,  whom  I  have  heard 
and  seen,  and  for  raising  up  of  whom  my  soul  magnifies  the 
Lord.  First  then,  read  the  little  handbill  enclosed  containing 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Cough's  pastor,  read  it  every  word,  and  be- 
lieve me  it  falls  far  short  of  the  reality ;  when  you  have  read  it, 
turn  to  the  last  three  pages,  or  rather  the  44th  page  of  the 
pamphlet,  and  read  the  pen  and  ink  sketch  of  him,  and  de- 
pend upon  it,  it  is  below  the  reality  —  as  a  description.  When 
you  have  read  it  begin  the  sketch  of  his  life  and  I  know  you 
cannot  help  reading  it  all,  be  sure  to  read  it  at  once  —  and 
then  lend  it,  and  when  you  have  your  book  parcel  order  some 
to  sell.  I  never  read  anything  with  such  intense  interest  in  my 
life,  it  is  true;  its  subject  is  a  living  man  and  a  Christian,  and 
I  have  heard  him  for  myself. 

I  was  at  the  Hall  last  night,  and  although  it  was  the  third 
oration  the  body  of  the  Hall  was  very  full,  and  the  platform 
above  half  full,  at  2s.  6d.  a  ticket.  I  did  not  intend  going  again, 
but  I  really  cannot  stay  away,  so  I  am  going,  all  well,  to-night 
to  the  Whittington  Club;  talk  of  eloquence  and  oratory!  I 
never  heard  any  before  in  comparison  with  this.  I  thought  I 
must  have  come  out,  it  almost  overpowered  me.  I  have  wit- 
nessed much  enthusiasm  in  that  Hall,  but  nothing  to  equal  it 
last  night,  kept  up  through  the  whole  address. 

Oh  in  some  parts  it  was  aivful;  my  father  sat  next  to  me, 
he  kept  turning  so  pale  and  his  hands  and  the  muscles  of  his 
face  were  in  most  sensible  emotion ;  his  description  of  the 
gradual  process  of  intemperance  could  only  have  been  given  by 
one  who  had  experienced  it;  it  was  truly  awful,  but  oh  sple)idid 
in  the  extreme  and  true,  as  God  is  true.  His  eloquence  is 
irresistible;  the  people  seemed  spellbound  while  his  graphic 
passages  lasted,  and  then  one,  loud,  prolonged  shout  and  cheer 
gave  him  breathing  time.  He  spoke  most  powerfully  on  the 
mighty  influence  of  woman,  and  told  some  telling  anecdotes 
on  the  subject,  he  appealed  to  the  young  ladies  present  with 
earnestness  which  I  trust  sank  into  many  hearts,  and  what  he 
said  to  young  men  is  beyond  eulogium,  nay,  I  will  give  over;  I 


176  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

am  mortified  that  I  cannot  give  you  any  idea  of  it,  and  oh  it  is 
all  accompanied  by  such  genuine  self-abasement  and  Christian 
feeling  that  no  one  could  help  being  electrified ;  but  it  is  useless 
me  writing,  I  am  so  excited.  I  have  been  to  three  or  four 
places  this  morning  to  get  persons  to  go  to-night  who  I  know 
are  going  down  to  destruction  through  drink.  Praise  the 
Lord,  all  have  received  me  kindly  and  three  are  going.  One 
of  them  is  the  poor  man  I  told  you  about,  he  has  just  been  here 
for  a  ticket  I  bought  him  last  night,  and  is  going !  Praise 
the  Lord  with  me ;  he  tells  me  that  he  has  not  tasted  a  drop 
since  I  first  spoke  to  him,  and  that  he  begins  to  feel  better,  and 
indeed  his  parched  lips  and  palsied  limbs  begin  to  assume  a 
more  healthful  appearance,  but  oh  the  struggle  is  fearful.  Mr. 
Gough  described  it  last  night,  as  next  to  hell  itself,  but  the 
Lord  is  able  to  keep  him  from  falling,  and  I  have  confidence 
in  Him,  and  I  intend  to  work  more  in  this  good  cause. 

Oh  how  I  praised  God  last  night  for  raising  up  this  man ; 
I  believe  his  visit  will  be  a  blessed  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
cause  in  this  country.  The  Secretary  said  the  committee  were 
determined  to  keep  him  longer  than  his  intention;  if  so,  he  will 
most  likely  visit  the  principal  towns,  if  he  stays  much  longer 
I  do  hope  yoii  will  hear  him.  Oh  I  praised  God  for  giving 
me  to  see  the  importance  of  abstaining  from  the  accursed  stuff, 
and  I  praised  Him  too  for  enabling  me  to  keep  my  early  reso- 
lution to  give  my  affections  to  no  man  who  was  not  of  the  same 
mind ;  bless  the  Lord  that  we  both  see  alike  here,  and  I  shall 
be  able  to  train  up  our  children  perfect  Samsons.  Oh  do  all 
you  can  in  this  cause,  speak  to  moderate  drinking  professors ; 
those  clogs  on  the  wheel  of  the  temperance  chariot  destined  to 
triumph  in  its  march  round  our  world  in  spite  of  their  indiffer- 
ence and  opposition.  Get  some  copies  of  this  pamphlet  and 
distribute  them  either  with  or  without  being  paid;  if  the  people 
will  not  buy  them,  lend  them  or  give  them  away,  make  them 
read  it. 

And  now,  how  are  you?  Do  not  think  that  in  this  excite- 
ment I  have  felt  no  concern  about  you.  I  have  very  much. 
Even  last  night  in  the  Hall,  I  felt  anxious  about  your  poor 
bruised  body  and  I  do  hope  you  are  quite  restored.  Oh  I  did 
wish  you  were  with  me  last  night,  you  would  have  been  en- 
raptured; if  he  stays  in  London  you  7nust  come. 

PS. —  Read  every  word  of  the  pamphlet. 

Monday  afternoon,  I5.8.'53. 

My  Love  —  Your  very  kind  note  did  not  come  to  hand  till 
after  one  o'clock.  You  make  me  smile  about  your  dreams ; 
and  did  you  really  feel  so  bad  at  the  thoughts  of  losing  me? 
Well,  I  do  not  think  you  have  any  reason  to  fear  losing  me  in 
any  way  which  would  imply  dishonour  or  breach  of  faith  on 
my  part,  and  I  suppose  it  must  have  been  some  such  phantom 


xin]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  177 

to  be  worse  than  death.  Dreams  are  strange  things ;  I  often 
have  some  very  exhausting  and  unpleasant  ones,  and  especially 
since  I  have  been  so  unwell.  But  I  am  not  superstitious  about 
dreams;  they  are  generally  the  effect  of  physical  derangement, 
I  think.  However,  supposing  Satan  had  power  to  terrify  the 
imagination  during  sleep,  he  cannot  harm  us  by  dreams,  and  I 
defy  him  to  separate  thee  and  me  by  any  such  means  ;  while 
you  are  pure  and  true,  according  to  my  standard  of  truth  and 
purity,  nothing,  nor  any  being  can  come  between  us.  Oh,  it 
does  me  good  to  hear  how  you  used  Saturday.  Well,  go  on 
and  you  will  reap  a  rich  reward.  The  knowledge  of  such 
effort  will  make  me  happier  than  thousands  of  gold  and  silver. 
I  want  you  to  be  a  man  and  a  Christian,  and  then  I  am  satis- 
fied, but  short  of  that  I  never  could  be.  I  might  hide  my  dis- 
content, but  it  would  eat  out  the  vitals  of  my  affection  and 
leave  me  either  to  make  you  miserable  or  die  in  the  attempt  to 
act  a  false  part.  I  have  such  views  of  what  you  should  be,  and 
I  have  always  had  such  views  of  what  the  man  must  be  to 
whom  I  gave  myself,  that  it  would  be  bitterer  than  gall  to 
find  myself  bound  to  one  in  mind  and  head  manifestly  un- 
worthy. Oh,  I  always  prayed  against  it,  and  I  believe  the 
Lord  will  guide  me.  Bless  you,  I  have  confidence  in  you,  I 
zvill  have  confidence,  and  I  will  be  thoroughly  happy  about  you, 
and  then  my  health  will  improve,  I  trust. 


We  now  have  as  significant  a  letter  as  any  in  the  series, 
a  letter  of  Catherine  Mumford's,  breathing  the  deepest 
spirituality  and  revealing  the  mystical  element  in  her 
nature  —  that  element  which  beautified  and  sanctified  her 
revivalism,  and  rendered  her  one  of  the  great  figures  in 
religious  history.  If  throughout  all  her  other  letters  one 
can  see  the  mother  in  her  heart  bending  with  solicitude 
over  the  life  of  her  lover,  in  this  letter  one  can  hear  the  very 
beating  of  the  wings  of  his  guardian  angel. 

Thursday  afternoon,  December  i,  '53. 
My  own  dear  William  —  I  experienced  great  pleasure  in 
the  perusal  of  your  Saturday's  letter,  especially  as  you  re- 
ferred to  my  remarks  about  my  thoughts  respecting  our  future 
oneness  of  sympathy  and  feeling;  you  cannot  appreciate  the 
pleasure  it  gives  me  after  writing  a  sheet  or  two  out  of  the 
fulness  of  my  heart,  to  receive  a  response  to  the  particular 
subject  on  which  I  write.  I  never  knew  that  you  loved  me  be- 
cause of  my  capacity  for  deep  feeling ;  on  the  contrary,  I  have 
often  felt  discouraged  from  writing  all  I  felt  by  the  idea  that 


178  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

you  would  count  it  extravagant  enthusiasm,  or  wild  senti- 
mentalism.  .  .  . 

Your  Tuesday's  notes  arrived  safe,  and  I  was  rejoiced  by 
both  to  hear  of  the  continued  prosperity  of  the  work,  though 
sorry  you  were  so  worn  out ;  I  fear  the  effect  of  all  this  excite- 
ment and  exertion  upon  your  health,  and  though  I  would  not 
hinder  your  usefulness,  I  would  caution  you  against  an  in- 
judicious prodigality  of  your  strength. 

Remember  a  long  life  of  steady,  consistent,  holy  labour  will 
produce  twice  as  much  fruit  as  one  shortened  and  destroyed 
by  spasmodic  and  extravagant  exertions ;  be  careful  and  spar- 
ing of  your  strength  when  and  where  exertion  is  unnecessary. 

I  have  thought  much  about  the  New  Connexion,  and  I  am 
sorry  you  propose  being  decided  by  what  the  quarterly  meet- 
ing may  do,  because  I  do  not  see  what  that  has  to  do  with 
the  future.  .  .  . 

I  think,  dearest,  if  you  would  sit  down  deliberately  and  take 
both  sides  of  the  question  into  consideration,  and  in  the  fear  of 
God  decide  according  to  your  best  judgment,  you  would  save 
yourself  much  unnecessary  anxiety  and  vacillation.  Decide 
independent  of  the  quarterly  meeting;  it  is  for  the  future  you 
are  to  think  and  act,  not  for  the  present ;  then  decide  for  the 
future,  uninfluenced  by  the  present,  trusting  in  God  to  clear 
the  way  and  fit  you  for  the  position,  if  the  step  be  agreeable 
to  His  will.  If  our  prospects  fail  here,  our  path  being  blocked 
up,  and  the  interests  of  our  family  demand  it,  I  will  brave  all 
the  trials  of  the  voyage  and  the  climate  and  cheerfully  accom- 
pany you  across  the  Atlantic,  because  then  I  should  feel  "  Well, 
we  tried  the  only  path  conscientiously  open  to  us  in  our  native 
land  and  it  failed ;  therefore  if  evil  befall  us  we  shall  be  sus- 
tained by  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  path  of  duty  and  in  the 
order  of  Providence  " ;  whereas  if  we  fail  to  try  this  door  and 
our  prospects  darken,  I  shall  always  think  we  missed  our  way. 

I  was  truly  sorry  to  hear  of  the  ground  which  Satan  has 
chosen  from  which  to  attack  you ;  I  appreciate  your  confidence 
in  opening  your  heart  to  me  as  I  know  you  would  not  to  an- 
other in  the  world,  and  as  a  "  faithful  friend  is  the  medicine 
of  life,  and  he  who  fears  the  Lord  shall  find  one,"  I  must  try 
to  help  you  to  search  your  heart  and  encourage  you  to  look  for 
the  victory  over  self  which  your  Saviour  has  promised  you. 

You  ask  if  such  feelings  as  you  refer  to  are  not  evidences  of 
a  bad  heart.  I  answer,  they  are  evidences  of  a  partially  un- 
sanctified  one;  and,  my  Love,  just  in  proportion  to  your  satis- 
faction in  the  simple  fact  of  God  being  glorified  and  souls  being 
saved,  by  any  instrument  whatsoever,  just  so  far  is  your  eye 
single  and  your  motive  pure  in  your  own  individual  efforts. 
Try  yourself,  dearest,  by  this  standard  rather  than  by  your 
feelings  in  the  excitement  of  a  prayer  meeting  when  you  are  the 


xinl  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  179 

principal  agent.  I  speak  with  all  tenderness,  and  as  the  be- 
loved of  my  soul  I  tell  you,  that  I  see  ambition  to  be  your  chief 
mental  besetment,  not  a  beset ment  if  rightly  directed  and  sanc- 
tified, but  which  unsanctified  and  "  warped  to  an  idol  object  "■ 
will  make  your  life  a  martyrdom,  a  lingering  self-crucifixion. 
Ambition  even  to  save  souls  may  not  be  sanctified ;  but  am- 
bition simply  to  glorify  God,  the  soul  sunk  down,  rather  risen 
up,  to  the  one  sublime  idea  of  glorifying  God,  must  be  sancti- 
fied. A  mind  fastened  on  this  one  object  will  take  pleasure 
in  infirmities  even  (such  as  want  of  talent,  etc.,  etc.),  that  the 
power  of  Christ  may  rest  upon  it,  *'  being  willing  to  be  thought 
a  fool  "  if  by  such  means  the  zvisdom  of  Christ  may  be  mani- 
fested and  glorified.  This,  dearest,  is,  in  my  opinion,  full  con- 
secration to  God,  this  is  being  like  Christ,  and  religion  in  all 
its  stages,  I  see  more  than  ever  to  be,  assimilation  to  Him, 
more  or  less  perfect. 

Look  at  the  life  of  Christ,  analyze  His  conversations  with 
the  Jews,  and  what  object  does  He  ever  seem  to  keep  upper- 
most, what  was  His  chief  aim,  but  to  "  glorify  His  Father," 
and  so  I  conceive  the  bliss  of  Heaven  consists  in  the  realiza- 
tion of  that  one  object,  the  glory  of  God.  .  .  .  Try,  dearest,  to 
get  the  ambition  of  your  soul  fixed  on  the  glory  of  your  God, 
and  it  will  bear  you  up  to  one  of  Heaven's  high  thrones,  and 
enrich  your  brow  with  one  of  its  unfading  crowns ;  get  low  at 
the  foot  of  the  cross,  and  lie  there  till  God's  glory  becomes  all 
and  in  all  to  your  soul ;  tell  the  Lord  you  want  to  feel  ivilling  to 
crawl  as  it  were,  behind  every  other  Christian,  so  far  as  the  esti- 
mation of  man  goes,  if  by  this  means  you  can  best  promote 
His  glory  ;  tell  Him  that  you  don't  want  talent  and  popularity 
if  you  can  glorify  Him  better  without  them.  Tell  Him  your 
zvill  and  desire  is  to  be  holy,  leaving  Him  to  choose  your  em- 
ployment and  position,  and  ask  Him  for  the  inward  baptism 
of  the  Holy  Ghost,  that  what  you  already  desire  may  become 
the  actual  delight  of  your  life.  .  .  . 

Oh  my  dear  William,  depend  upon  it,  it  is  not  talent  or 
learning  (however  estimable  as  instruments),  nor  might  nor 
power,  but  "My  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord."  It  is  a  soul  spending 
itself  simply  for  this  one  end  which  God  will  honour  and 
which  He  always  has  honoured  since  He  first  spoke  to  man ; 
and  just  in  proportion  as  other  motives  operate  will  He  cause 
disappointment  and  vexation  of  spirit.  The  present  state 
of  the  Church  proves  this ;  the  Church  has  got  machinery 
enough,  talent  of  the  first  order,  numbers,  organizations,  money, 
etc.,  etc.,  etc.,  and  God  seems  to  be  standing  aloof  looking  on 
and  saying  "  You  are  trying  to  do  My  work  in  your  own 
strength  and  in  your  own  way,  trying  to  build  up  systems  and 
teach  men's  intellects,  and  please  your  own  fancies,  instead  of 
ever  remembering  My  word  '  zanthout  Me  ye  can  do  nothing,' 


i8o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

and  taking  hold  of  the  strength  and  grace  I  hold  out  to  you 
and  going  forth  for  My  glory  only  to  save  mankind."  This 
appears  to  me  to  be  exactly  the  present  position  of  the  Church, 
God's  glory  is  lost  sight  of,  and  }}ian  is  set  up  in  His  place  and 
worshipped ;  surely,  then,  God  is  just  and  true  in  withholding 
His  Spirit  till  His  Church  learns  her  own  weakness. 

I  believe  it  is  with  ministers  a  revival  must  begin,  their  self- 
sufficiency  must  be  destroyed  before  God  can  use  them,  their 
motives  must  be  pure  before  He  will  honour  them.  An  unholy 
ministry  is  the  greatest  curse  of  the  Church ;  I  don't  mean  an 
immoral  or  outwardly  unrighteous  ministry,  but  one  unholy 
in  soul,  polluted  in  motive.  Talk  of  a  stiff  formal  people,  a 
cold  do-nothing  people,  a  worldly,  proud  people ;  where  there 
is  a  devoted,  faithful,  holy  minister,  I  don't  believe  it;  there 
never  was  such  an  anomaly  lasted  long.  On  the  other  hand, 
call  up  a  faithful,  devoted,  holy  man  who  seeks  only  God's 
glory,  and  be  he  talented  or  not,  there  you  find  a  prosperous, 
active,  living  Church.  When  I  heard  Baptist  Noel  I  was 
much  disappointed  as  to  talent,  but  not  for  a  moment  at  a  loss 
for  the  secret  of  his  universal  popularity  and  extensive  useful- 
ness ;  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  beamed  through  every  feature  of  his 
countenance,  and  vibrated  in  every  tone  of  his  voice.  Any- 
body who  had  read  the  life  of  Christ,  converted  or  not,  could 
not  but  feel  that  the  man  who  spake  was  a  "  follower,  for  his 
speech  betrayed  him";  there  stood  an  embodiment  of  the  re- 
ligion of  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  it  always  has  been  and  always 
will  be,  everybody  felt  its  power.  There  was  no  oratory,  no 
eloquence,  and  but  little  originality ;  so  that  considering  my 
disappointment,  having  heard  so  much  about  him  and  not 
knozving  the  secret  I  should  have  zvondered  why  I  felt  so  much, 
such  a  sense  of  solemnity  and  tenderness,  as  though  God  were 
nearer  than  usual,  if  I  had  not  understood  something  of  the 
meaning  of  that  word  "  if  a  man  love  Me,  I  will  love  him,  and 
My  Father  and  I  will  come  to  him,  and  we  will  make  our 
abode  with  him." 

Oh,  my  Love,  this  is  it ;  get  these  Heavenly  Guests,  and  they 
will  do  tJieir  own  zvork,  their  very  presence  will  constitute  your 
strength  and  ability  to  every  good  and  holy  work.  God  can 
use  such  men  as  these  without  giving  His  glory  to  another, 
people  can  see  as  it  were  through  the  man's  own  self,  right  to 
the  embodied  Jesus  in  his  heart;  and  hence  God  gets  the  glory 
of  His  own  work,  and  His  strength  is  made  manifest  in  weak- 
ness. Oh,  I  feel  that  if  God  should  ask  me  —  What  shall  I 
do  for  thee  ?  I  would  answer  without  a  moment's  delay,  "  Give 
me  grace  to  cry  in  all  life's  conflicts  and  changes  and  tempta- 
tions and  in  death's  final  struggle  as  my  Saviour  did,  '  Father, 
glorify  Thyself,' "  though  He  knew  that  to  do  so  would  expose 
Him  to  contempt,  and  shame,  and  suffering,  such  as  had  never 


XIII]  HIS  GUARDIAN  ANGEL  i8i 

been  conceived,  except  by  His  own  omniscient  mind.  Oh,  I 
shall  never  forget  one  season  in  my  life  when  the  Divine  glory 
eclipsed  my  spiritual  vision  and  seemed  to  enrapture  my  soul 
with  its  lustre.  Oh  how  truly  dignified  did  any  employments 
appear  which  could  glorify  God.  I  saw  how  rapidly  the  high- 
est Archangel  would  dart  from  his  starry  throne  down  to  this 
mean  earth  to  remove  a  stone  out  of  the  pathway  of  a  little 
child  if  such  an  act  would  glorify  God,  and  oh  I  felt  it  the  high- 
est privilege  of  my  being  to  be  able  to  do  it.  I  wish  I  could 
make  you  feel  just  as  I  then  felt ;  but  Jesus  can,  and  He  will  if 
you  ask  Him.  It  was  in  secret  communion  with  Him  I  realized 
the  glorious  vision,  and  if  you  wait  for  it,  and  cry  as  Moses 
did  "  show  inc  Thy  glory  "  He  will  come,  and  oh  the  comfort 
and  the  light  which  such  a  vision  leaves,  truly  it  lasts  many 
days;  even  in  the  darkest  moments  of  my  subsequent  experi- 
ence I  have  traced  its  glimmer,  and  I  believe  Hell  itself  could 
not  obliterate  the  views  then  given  me  on  this  subject.  But 
oh  how  it  tortures  me  to  think  it  was  given  in  vain,  or  nearly 
so.  In  vain !  No,  perhaps  not,  I  still  live,  and  bless  God  it 
may  yet  prove  "  not  in  vain." 

Pray  for  me,  pray  for  me,  and  let  us  give  ourselves  to  the 
promotion  of  God's  glory,  and  let  us  ever  remember  that  God  is 
glorified  in  the  full  consecration  of  what  we  have,  be  it  small  or 
great;  He  desires  not  the  increase  of  five  talents  for  the  loan  of 
one,  but  a  full,  perfect  consecration  of  that  one  to  His  own 
honour,  and  whoever  renders  this.  He  pronounced  as  hearty 
a  Well  done  upon,  as  upon  him  who  has  received  ten.  I  have 
often  erred  here,  I  will  try  to  remember  in  future  that  all  I 
have  is  all  He  wants ;  you  remember  it  too,  dearest,  and  be  not 
anxious  because  you  have  not  as  much  talent  as  this  or  that 
man,  but  only  to  have  what  you  have  fully  sanctified,  and  you 
will  realize  the  end  of  your  existence  as  fully  and  glorify  God 
as  much  in  your  sphere  as  Gabriel  does  in  his ;  begin  and  pray 
for  grace  to  "  glory  in  tribulation  and  in  weakness,"  that  "  the 
power  and  the  excellency  may  be  seen  to  be  of  God."  Be 
willing  to  endure  the  thorn  of  felt  insufficiency,  and  even  in- 
feriority to  others,  if  His  grace  be  only  sufficient  to  make  you 
useful  in  His  vineyard.  I  believe  it  matters  little  whether  we 
are  employed  in  gathering  the  sheaves,  or  gleaning  the  strag- 
gling ears  after  the  reaper ;  it  is  the  state  of  the  soul  which 
fixes  the  value  of  the  employment,  not  the  employment  itself ; 
to  glorify  God  is  enough,  in  small  or  great  things,  according  as 
the  measure  of  ability  and  opportunity  is  ours.  Let  us  try  to 
fix  our  eye  on  this  and  aim  ai  it  alone. 

But  I  have  dwelt  too  long  on  this  subject.  I  hope  what  I 
have  said  will  be  made  a  blessing  to  you,  if  so  tell  me  for  I 
have  written  it  in  great  weakness,  at  intervals  during  the  last 
two  or  three  days,  sitting  in  my  easy  chair  with  a  dreadful 


i82      THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap.xih] 

cough  tearing  me  almost  to  pieces,  but  I  find  to  write  takes 
off  the  restlessness  and  weariness  always  attendant  on  re- 
covery from  severe  illness.  Read  it  sometimes  during  the 
zveek,  and  may  God  own  even  this  weak  instrumentality  dedi- 
cated to  His  glory. 

There  are  one  or  two  more  points  in  your  last  week's  letters 
but  I  must  leave  them,  except  what  you  say  about  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Shadford's  kindness  making  it  most  difficult  to  leave.  Cer- 
tainly it  must  make  it  more  painful  to  leave  tkem  as  friends, 
but  it  must  not  operate  as  a  servile  feeling  of  obligation  to 
interfere  with  your  obedience  to  the  dictates  of  judgment  and 
reason ;  such  an  effect  would  make  you  unworthy  of  such 
friendship ;  for  I  cannot  for  a  moment  think  that  such  an  effect 
was  sought;  if  so,  that  altogether  alters  the  character  of  the 
act,  the  motive  being  double;  but  no,  I  believe  it  was  an  ex- 
pression of  pure  friendship,  and  as  such  you  must  regard  it 
and  not  allow  a  sense  of  obligation  to  shackle  you.  But  I  need 
not  mention  such  a  thing,  I  trust  it  is  as  far  beneath  yon  as  me. 

It  is  impossible  to  read  this  letter  without  admiration 
and  without  a  feeling  of  deep  reverence  for  the  young  and 
delicate  woman  who  wrote  it;  but  the  chief  impression  it 
makes  is  concerned  rather  with  the  man  to  whom  it  was 
written.  One  perceives  that  an  influence  of  the  sweetest, 
purest,  and  most  mystical  character  is  at  work,  with  all  the 
quiet  confidence  of  spiritual  strength,  on  a  nature  primitive, 
headstrong,  unruly,  self-satisfied,  and  yet  self-tortured  by 
doubts  —  a  nature  capable  of  greatness  but  susceptible  also 
of  ruin  and  failure.  One  sees  that  the  mothering  of  Wil- 
liam Booth  has  begun;  that  the  embrace  of  a  milder  and  a 
purer  spirit  is  beginning  to  enfold  itself  about  his  life;  that 
he  is  conscious  of  an  inferiority  which  she  supplies,  and  she 
in  him  of  a  superiority  which  she  studies  to  enhance. 

Something  of  the  storm  through  which  he  himself  was 
passing  at  this  period  of  his  life  may  be  seen  in  the  letters 
which  compose  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

WILLIAM    BOOTH    TO    CATHERINE   MUMFORD 
1853-1854 

The  reader  has  already  been  warned  to  expect  in  the  letters 
of  William  Booth  a  marked  inferiority  to  the  letters  of 
Catherine  Mum  ford.  It  is  probably  the  greatest  tribute 
to  his  character,  particularly  at  the  time  with  which  we 
are  dealing,  that  he  was  loved  so  earnestly  and  so  beauti- 
fully by  Catherine  Mumford,  that  she  deemed  him  worthy 
of  the  letters  which  she  addressed  to  him.  One  must  be 
careful  to  remember  that  he  was  a  great  man  in  the  making, 
and  that  even  a  great  man  may  be  an  indifferent  letter- 
writer.  Moreover,  as  Sainte-Beuve  has  warned  us,  things 
said  in  conversation  become  congealed  in  the  process  of 
writing,  for  paper  cannot  smile,  paper  is  hrutish;  and  his 
letters  are  largely  an  effort  to  express  himself  conversation- 
ally. One  realizes,  too,  that  in  Catherine  Mum  ford's  hands 
these  letters  of  the  young  preacher  were  warm  with  the 
man's  life-blood,  were  instinct  with  his  attractive  character, 
were  living  with  the  magic  of  his  presence;  the  paper  was 
not  brutish,  for  his  hand  had  pressed  it ;  the  paper  did 
actually  smile,  for  his  eyes  had  rested  upon  it.  To  her  these 
troubled  and  often  untidied  letters  were  the  utterance  of 
a  very  real  soul  —  the  greatest  soul  she  had  encountered  — 
and  their  feebleness  was  but  the  awkward  gesture  of  a  giant 
who  has  put  down  his  club  to  make  a  love-bow  of  a  withy. 
She  wrote  to  him  on  one  occasion : 

Do  I  remember?  Yes.  I  remember  all  that  has  bound  us 
together.  .  .  .  Your  words,  your  looks,  your  actions,  even  the 
most  trivial  and  incidental,  come  up  before  me  as  fresh  as  life. 

The  main  interest  of  these  letters  is  the  revelation  they 
afford,  however  crudely,  of  a  man's  struggle  with  his  own 
soul.  William  Booth  was  not  born  a  saint,  any  more  than 
St.  Augustine  or  St.  Francis.  He  had  faults ;  he  had  weak- 
ness ;  he  had  the  roots  of  sin.     One  discovers  in  these  letters, 

183 


1 84  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

even  when  the  writer  flies  off  to  the  rehgious  phraseology 
of  the  day  for  a  release  from  pitiless  self -analysis,  that  he 
was  fighting  a  very  great,  a  very  terrible  battle  for  his  soul's 
existence.  They  do  not  give  one  so  easily  and  so  movingly 
the  same  sense  of  conflict  which  one  finds  in  the  letters  and 
very  honest  autobiography  of  Father  Tyrrell;  they  are 
entirely  devoid  of  literary  charm;  they  do  not  deal  with 
the  niceties  of  scholasticism,  nor  mount  into  the  empyrean 
of  philosophy;  nevertheless  to  one  who  reads  with  sympathy, 
remembering  the  distance  which  separated  the  one  from  the 
other,  there  is  something  of  the  same  spiritual  struggle, 
the  same  spiritual  agony,  in  these  rough  letters  of  William 
Booth  as  flames  like  a  living  fire  in  the  writings  of  Tyrrell. 

It  will  probably  come  as  a  revelation  to  those  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  William  Booth  as  the  white-haired,  gentle, 
and  patriarchal  head  of  the  Salvation  Army,  that  he  had  to 
fight  for  his  faith,  that  he  was  often  cast  down  into  an  abyss 
of  despondency,  that  his  heart  cried  out  from  the  depths 
of  an  exceeding  bitterness  for  the  sympathies  and  con- 
solations and  domestic  kindness  of  humanity.  And  yet 
reflection  should  surely  convince  us  that  so  deep  and  bound- 
less a  love  for  mankind  as  that  which  characterised  his 
life's  work  could  only  have  emerged  from  tempest  and  peril 
of  shipwreck,  could  only  have  come  from  agony  of  the  heart 
and  through  blindness  of  tears. 

That  which  must  chiefly  interest  the  student  of  this 
man's  extraordinary  career  is  the  immense  influence  exerted 
on  his  spiritual  development  by  the  woman  he  loved;  so 
great  and  high  indeed  in  this  influence,  that  one  may  even 
doubt  if  his  name  had  ever  risen  above  the  level  of  ordinary 
preachers  but  for  the  constant  pressure  and  the  never-lifted 
consecration  of  Catherine  Mumford's  beautiful  spirit.  For 
the  reader  of  these  letters  will  perceive  that  not  only  was 
William  Booth  lacking  in  many  graces  of  the  soul,  but  that  he 
was  positively  swayed  at  this  time  towards  dangerous  paths. 

There  was  that  in  his  surroundings,  if  not  actually  in 
himself,  which  tended  to  make  him  the  mere  popular 
preacher,  the  practised  orator  of  unctuous  phraseology,  the 
seeker  of  notoriety.  He  was  young,  he  was  romantic-look- 
ing, he  was  poor.     To  be  married  to  the  woman  he  loved  — 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS  185 

so  that  she  might  talk  over  his  sermons  with  him,  among 
other  things  —  was  a  great  temptation.  Further,  his  heahh 
was  extremely  bad,  physical  effort  was  sometimes  a  torture 
to  him,  the  discomfort  of  lodgings  weighed  him  down  and 
depressed  him  in  body  and  soul.  He  longed  for  a  regular 
income,  however  small,  for  a  settled  home,  however  modest. 
He  thought  that  the  unrest  of  his  soul  would  cease,  and  that 
religious  quiet  would  possess  his  heart,  if  he  could  be  de- 
cently settled  in  life.  But  again  and  again,  all  through  these 
most  difficult,  most  crucial,  and  most  formative  years  of 
his  life,  he  felt  the  call  of  the  Spirit,  and  knew  that  there 
was  something  ahead  of  him,  something  beyond  a  home 
and  domestic  comfort,  something  beyond  the  affection  of 
friends  and  the  popularity  of  the  Methodist  Church,  to 
which  he  must  struggle  on,  for  which  he  mu'st  be  prepared 
to  make  a  sacrifice  of  every  human  wish. 

His  conflict  was  not  of  the  intellect,  but  of  the  very  life. 
He  was  not  troubled  about  the  schools,  but  about  God  and 
his  soul.  He  did  not  have  to  wrestle  in  spirit  for  a  ground 
on  which  he  might  stand  firmly  and  utter  a  more  or  less  com- 
promising Credo;  his  conflict  was  to  destroy  in  himself 
everything  that  warred  against  the  will  of  God.  To  him 
there  was  nothing  clearer  than  the  injunction  to  sell  all  and 
forsake  all  for  Christ's  sake;  but  really  to  sell  all,  really 
to  forsake  all,  this  was  the  cross  which  pressed  him 
to  the  ground.  And  sometimes  when  he  cried  to  the 
heavens  for  light  on  his  path,  the  darkness  deepened.  His 
hands  knocked  and  beat  upon  the  door,  but  it  was  not 
opened.  He  asked  and  asked  again,  crying  out  from  the 
depths  of  his  soul,  but  no  answer  was  vouchsafed.  Through 
all  that  time  the  way  was  not  clear  before  his  feet,  and  the 
ground  on  which  he  stood  was  as  shifting  sand. 

Catherine  Mum  ford  also  experienced  these  seasons  of 
darkness  and  silence;  but  she  was  living  a  solitary  life,  and 
could  patiently  wait  for  the  light  to  shine  and  the  voice  from 
heaven  to  speak  in  her  heart.  William  Booth,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  preaching  to  increasing  congregations  of  people, 
he  was  declaring  the  good  news,  he  was  offering  salvation, 
he  was  proclaiming  the  Kingdom.  To  him  these  periods  of 
darkness  and  silence  were  infinitelv  more  hard  to  bear  than 


i86  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

they  could  possibly  be  to  Catherine  Mumford ;  and  for  him 
the  temptation  must  have  been  a  very  terrible  one,  not  to 
strive  any  longer,  not  to  expect  the  extraordinary  thing  to 
happen,  but  to  become  the  popular  preacher  of  a  country- 
side, content  with  a  traditional  phraseology,  and  satisfied 
with  the  compliments  of  the  saved,  Catherine  Mumford's 
influence  was  the  supreme  human  power  that  moulded  his 
life;  but  it  is  evident,  I  think,  from  these  poor,  simple,  crude, 
and  sometimes  irritating  letters-  that  there  was  a  huge 
strength,  rock-like  and  original,  in  the  soul  of  William 
Booth  which  could  never  have  fitted  into  any  niche  of  con- 
venience nor  have  been  shaped  into  any  semblance  of  smug 
complacency. 

I  need  not  burden  the  reader's  mind  with  dreary  details 
of  the  sectarian  conflict  to  which  reference  is  constantly 
made  throughout  the  correspondence.  It  suffices  to  explain 
that  William  Booth  at  this  time  was  a  Minister  of  the 
Methodist  Reformers  in  Lincolnshire;  that  the  people  to 
whom  he  ministered  were  anxious  to  keep  him,  and  were 
ready  to  provide  him  with  a  house,  a  horse  and  gig,  and  a 
salary  sufficient  for  marriage;  that  Catherine  Mumford  dis- 
approved of  this  step,  and  pressed  her  young  lover  to  join 
the  New  Connexion  of  Methodists  —  a  body  much  better 
organized  and  far  more  widely  distributed  than  the  Re- 
formers ;  and,  finally,  that  while  William  Booth  was  drawn 
very  powerfully  towards  the  New  Connexion,  which  prom- 
ised him  a  much  wider  sphere  of  useful  service  and  a  settled 
career  as  an  ordained  minister,  his  affection  for  the  people 
in  Lincolnshire  and  his  desire  for  union  with  Catherine 
Mumford  tempted  him  sorely  to  remain  among  the  Re- 
formers, 

William  Booth  to  Catherine  Mumford. 

1853.     (Undated.)     i   o'clock. 

My  dear  darling  Kate  —  What  would  I  not  give  to  see  you 
this  afternoon,  to  sit  by  your  side,  and  tell  you  my  heart's 
feelings  !  Bless  you !  We  shall  yet  together,  I  trust  in  Provi- 
dence, be  spared  many  precious  and  happy  hours. 

Home.  This  word  sounds  sweetly  to  me  now.  I  think  I 
shall  rightly  prize  one  when  I  get  it ;  at  home  with  you ;  to 
have  a  home !  and  it  is  your  presence  and  your  presence  only 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS  187 

that  can  make  it  home  to  me.  Well,  then,  to  some  extent  you 
reciprocate  these  feelings.  You  cannot  entertain  them  to  the 
same  extent  that  I  do.  You  have  a  sweet  home  now,  and  its 
quietude  and  solitude  you  enjoy  and  speak  lovingly  of.  I  have 
no  home.  Mine  is  a  lodging,  a  study,  that  is  all.  I  come  into 
it  tired  and  weary,  and  except  there  be  some  letters  or  news 
about  my  yet  having  a  home,  it  seems  a  dreary  and  melancholy 
place.  Well,  we  will  yet  make  home  brighter  to  each  other  and 
I  will  try  and  kiss  every  tear  away,  and  enhance  the  enjoyment 
of  every  smile  and  make  you  as  happy  as  I  can. 

I  have  more  confidence  in  the  people  among  whom  I  am 
labouring.  I  believe  they  will  do  all  they  possibly  can  to  make 
us  happy,  and  I  hope  to  spend  a  year  or  two  longer  here.  I 
have  given  up  hope  of  our  people  generally  throughout  the 
country  amalgamating,  and  our  Circuit  seems  determined  to 
hang  to  the  whole  body,  and  so  I  don't  take  so  desirable  an 
event  into  my  calculations.  We  must  leave  our  future  in  the 
Hands  of  God.  Do  not  you?  Only  let  us  both  do  the  best  we 
can  for  ourselves  and  for  God  and  His  Church.  .  .  . 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding. 

My  own  dear  Kate  —  With  feelings  of  very  great  pleasure 
I  snatch  up  my  pen  to  write  you  a  line  —  bless  you,  I  would 
that  I  could  see  you  and  that  I  could  rest  me  for  a  season  by 
your  side  and  tell  you  all  my  heart.  I  think  much  about  you ; 
your  eye  is  ever  looking  down  upon  me  and  beaming  into  my 
inmost  soul.  You  are  mine  and  you  have  my  heart,  and  surely 
all  this  ought  to  constitute  rich  enjoyment  for  us  both  ;  but  I 
have  ever  missed  the  present  happiness  in  seeking  and  grasp- 
ing the  future. 

I  want  you,  your  company,  your  comforting  and  consoling 
converse.  I  want  you  to  hear  me,  to  criticise  me,  to  urge  me 
on.  I  feel  such  a  desperate  sense  of  loneliness,  so  oppressive 
to  my  spirit.  I  speak  and  preach  and  act,  and  it  is  passed 
over;  there  is  no  one  with  whom  I  can  talk  over  my  per- 
formancc;  to  others  I  cannot  mention  it  for  fear  of  being 
thought  egotistic  or  seeking  for  praise,  and  for  some  reasons 
others  say  little  or  nothing  of  it  to  me;  I  hear  only  of  it  by 
hints  and  innuendoes.  I  want  you,  too,  to  help  you,  to  make 
you  happy,  to  bring  you  flowers,  to  show  you  my  friends,  for 
you  to  enjoy  the  sunshine  with  me  and  the  landscape,  and  the 
Sal)bath  and  sweet  days ;  bless  you,  I  was  never  made  to 
enjoy  anything  alone.  Oh  that  we  could  meet  only  for  a  time 
—  but  we  must  zvait.  I  shall  not  write  again  until  after  Quar- 
ter Day,  which  is  on  Monday.  Thursday  is  Spalding  Union 
School-Feast.  A  great  day  here.  I  would  that  you  were 
going  to  be  here.  The  children  of  all  the  dissenting  schools 
meet  in  the  Baptist  Chapel,  where  an  address  is  delivered ; 


i88  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

they  then  walk  to  fields  where  large  tents,  etc.,  are  erected ; 
they  have  their  plum-pudding  and  beef,  and  afterwards  play, 
etc. ;  then  comes  the  tea  and  public  meeting ;  the  shops  close 
and  the  whole  town  and  country  for  miles  round  turns  out,  and 
thus  give  a  public  verdict  in  favour  of  Sabbath  schools. 

I  spoke  at  St.  Catherine's  School-Feast,  although  the  morn- 
ing was  wet  and  cloudy.  The  meeting  was  a  triumphant  one, 
Mr.  Shadford  in  the  chair.  150  took  tea,  besides  the  chil- 
dren, the  people  came  through  rain  for  miles.  After  tea,  the 
speaking.  Mr.  Ryecrof t  spoke  well ;  he  has  a  delightful  way 
of  speaking.  I  followed  him,  and  succeeded  to  my  satisfaction. 
Here  is  the  outline  of  my  speech.  Introduced  by  the  anecdote 
of  Galileo,  who  when  tortured  by  the  Inquisition  for  declar- 
ing that  the  world  goes  round,  denied  it  when  on  the  rack,  but 
when  set  at  liberty,  stamped  his  foot  and  said.  It  does  go  round, 
it  does  move.  Well,  ist,  that  the  world  moves,  progress  the 
sign  of  the  times,  ist  on  its  physical  surface  —  Agriculture, 
produce,  flowers,  animals,  all  improving  Arts  and  Sciences. 
Stage-coaches  gone  —  now  the  age  of  engines,  telegraphs,  etc. 
It  moves, —  morally,  socially,  and  politically.  Benevolent  In- 
stitutions are  rapidly  rising,  although  the  Pope  is  still  in  Rome 
and  Napoleon  3rd  in  Paris  and  the  slave-driver  still  cracks  his 
infernal  whip,  yet  liberty  is  abroad,  men  are  thinking.  Hun- 
garian mother  is  instilling  into  her  babe's  mind  hatred  to 
Austria,  etc.,  etc.  Uncle  Tom  has  been  written  and  is  being 
read  everywhere,  and  though  they,  the  tyrants  of  the  earth, 
are  shutting  off  the  steam  and  fastening  down  the  escape-valve 
and  sitting  on  it  to  keep  it  down,  yet  the  boiler  may,  nay  will, 
burst  and  they  will  be  caught  up  to  meet  one  another  in  the 
air!  You  remember  the  last  idea  is  stolen  from  Uncle  Tom. 
The  world  moves.  Spiritually,  men  are  marching,  etc.  The 
Italians  are  calling  for  Bibles.  A  revolution  fraught  with  the 
most  glorious  prospects  to  Christianity  is  proceeding  in  China, 
etc.,  etc. 

2nd  proposition.  That  all  progress  past,  present,  and  future 
—  the  result  of  education.  Men  have  educated,  cultivated  the 
land,  the  wheat,  the  flower,  the  animals  —  men  have  educated 
brass,  iron,  steel,  etc.,  until  they  have  made  engines  to  grind,  to 
carry,  to  draw,  etc.,  etc.  Mind  has  been  educated,  or  we  should 
have  been  Druids  at  this  day,  etc.,  etc. 

Spiritually  likewise  —  Martyrs,  etc.  Are  we  to  stay  here  ? 
No,  a  thousand  angel  forms  are  beckoning  us  onwards.  Our 
work,  the  regeneration  of  our  world,  and  therefore  the  world 
must  be  educated.  And  to  be  educated  the  world  must  have 
a  teacher;  who  is  it  to  be? 

3rd  proposition.  Is  England,  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind,  the 
schoolmaster  for  the  world,  for  this  adapted?  I  embrace  all 
who  are  English,  America  of  course  to  some  extent.     She  has 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS  189 

lessons  of  freedom  to  teach  the  slave-driver;  of  the  Kingship 
of  Christ  and  the  supremacy  of  the  Bible  to  teach  Popes, 
priests,  and  Cardinals;  of  political  liberty  to  teach  the  spoilers 
of  Hungary  and  Poland  and  Italy ;  lessons  of  the  cross  of 
salvation  by  faith  in  Christ  alone  to  teach  Universal  Man. 

For  this  work  England  adapted  by  her  power,  her  fame,  and 
her  commercial  relations,  and  to  thoroughly  qualify  her  she 
must  be  thoroughly  educated.  Not  merely  mentally,  not 
merely  morally,  but  religiously  educated ;  and  she  cannot  be 
religiously  educated  but  by  the  instrumentality  of  Sunday 
Seliouls,  etc.  But  I  am  filling  up  my  letter  with  what  will  in- 
terest you  little  ;  however,  it  went  zvell.     That  is,  as  I  thought. 

I  do  hope  you  understood  me  to  say  in  my  last,  bless  you. 
that  should  I  find  in  you  any  irritability  more  than  I  have  dis- 
covered as  yet,  that  I  will  bear  with  it  and  love  you  none  the 
less;  bless  you;  do  not  say  any  more  on  such  subjects.  I  am 
more  than  ever  satisfied  with  you  —  mentally,  morally,  and 
spiritually.  Oh  it  is  that  I  am  irritable  and  will  want  bearing 
with,  but,  bless  you,  I  will  be  all,  all,  all,  all  you  wish.  Bless 
you,  I  love  you  dearly.  My  soul  loves  you.  Cling  to  the 
music.  Music,  oh  it  will  move  me  to  almost  anything.  It  can 
either  calm  or  arouse  me.  You  shall  have  all  my  temporal 
endowments  can  procure  to  make  you  happy. 

Cauldon  Place,  Hanley,  Staffordshire. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Sweet  —  With  very  great 
pleasure  I  sit  down  to  write  to  you.  I  am  expecting  to  hear 
from  you  to-morrow,  and  I  trust  I  shall  hear  very  good  news 
as  it  respects  your  health  and  happiness.  I  think  I  am  better 
in  health  than  I  was  when  I  came  down  here  —  I  have  com- 
menced washing  my  chest  well  with  cold  water  every  morning 
and  then  rubbing  well,  and  I  fancy  I  have  benefited  much  by 
this  course.  I  hope  to  persevere  with  it.  The  friends  mani- 
fest much  anxiety  about  my  health,  not  too  much,  I  do  not 
think.  I  have  taken  two  raw  eggs  in  my  tea  of  a  morning  and 
two  in  my  tea  at  evening,  and  I  think  this,  with  milk  and  oat- 
meal in  an  evening,  has  likewise  been  beneficial.  As  a  set-oflf 
against  this  I  have  worked  very  hard ;  we  had  the  chapel  very 
full  last  night,  the  largest  congregation  by  far  I  have  ever 
preached  to.  We  did  not  leave  until  20  minutes  to  12,  took 
down  50  names,  making  upwards  of  200  during  the  9  days.  I 
stayed  in  Longton ;  I  am  now  at  Hanley  resting  for  two  days. 
I  commence  on  Sunday  in  this  chapel,  famous  for  its  size  and 
its  New  Connexion  reminiscences.  .  .  . 

You  will  be  surprised  when  I  tell  you  that  my  stay  down 
here  is  very  likely  to  be  prolonged  until  March,  perhaps  until 
Conference.  It  is  proposed  to  send  a  preacher  in  my  place  to 
London  —  and    a    correspondence    is    being   carried    on    with 


IQO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Messrs.  Bates,  Gillon,  Rabbits,  and  Cooke  to  that  effect  —  I 
do  not  know  how  it  will  terminate  —  I  trust  in  all  these  things 
we  shall  be  guided  by  the  Lord.  Certainly  the  work  at  Long- 
ton  was  very  great  and  the  influence  very  mighty,  and  if  I 
could  have  stayed  we  cannot  tell  where  it  would  have  stayed. 
I  do  hope  you  are  well,  my  dearest.  My  expenses  to  Longton 
were  about  ii  15  :o;  they  gave  me  £5  :o:o.  I  have  had  to  pur- 
chase some  things  in  consequence  of  my  longer  stay,  etc.  I 
wish  you  were  here ;  I  have  just  spoken  to  Mr.  Mills  relative 
to  our  marriage  after  next  Conference  and  I  do  not  anticipate 
any  difficulty;  in  fact,  I  shall  very  impatiently  hear  of  any,  if 
I  hear  at  all  —  but  there  will  be  none.  I  hope  you  are  doing 
what  you  can  at  the  music,  and  likewise  at  your  books.  Bless 
you,  I  often  think  about  you  and  the  future  and  our  home  and 
our  family,  if  God  should  spare  us  and  trust  us  with  any.  I 
hope  we  shall  have  grace  to  say  in  all  things  and  in  all  cir- 
cumstances, Thy  will  be  done. 

I  hope  to  get  two  thorough  good  nights'  rest  and  to  be 
strong  and  well  by  Sunday.  Remember  me  kindly  to  mother 
and  father.  Write  me  a  long  loving  letter ;  you  have  plenty  of 
time.  Pray  for  me  and  I  will  pray  that  you  may  have  in  your 
soul  and  around  your  path  every  blessing.  And  that  in  my 
arms  you  may  find  your  earthly  heaven.  I  am  anxious  that  it 
should  be  so  —  nay,  it  shall  be  so. —  With  my  heart's  fondest 
and  truest  love.  .  .  . 

PS. —  I  want  to  make  a  sermon  on  "  The  Flood  " ;  if  any- 
thing strikes  you  on  the  subject,  note  it  down.  .  .  . 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding, 
Saturday,  9  o'clock. 
My  own  dear  Kate  —  Yours  has  just  come  to  hand. 
Thank  you  for  all  your  kind  sweet  counsellings,  but  I  cannot 
for  a  moment  only,  much  more  for  4  years,  think  of  consenting 
to  such  an  arrangement.  No,  my  present  expectations  are 
these.  I  stay  with  this  Circuit,  and  should  it  intend  to  amal- 
gamate, I  marry.  Then  it,  viz.  the  Circuit,  will  recommend  me 
to  the  Conference  as  a  travelling  preacher  and  stipulate  as  one 
of  the  conditions  of  the  union,  which  amalgamation  will  be 
highly  advantageous  to  them,  that  I  be  received  into  full  Con- 
nexion at  once.  That  will  be  the  plan,  I  have  no  doubt,  should 
this  Circuit  agree  to  unite.  If  not.  we  must  wait  and  then  de- 
cide on  a  course  of  action.  I  tell  you  honestly  that  I  do  not 
intend  anything  of  the  kind  as  going  4  years'  probationist  with 
them;  I  have  been  probationing  long  enough.  If  they  had  a 
Training  Institution  it  would  be  a  different  thing.  I  differ  in 
opinion  with  you  respecting  probation.  I  believe  it  to  be  an  ex- 
cellent rule.  That  is  in  the  abstract.  But  you  see  it  applies 
and  is  intended  to  apply  to  young  men  of  18,  19,  20,  and  21. 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS  191 

I  am,  to  my  shame  I  tell  it,  2^.  However,  I  have  told  you 
enough,  I  hope,  to  quiet  every  fear,  every  feeling  of  pain  or 
anxiety  in  your  bosom.  Be  at  peace  with  yourself  and  with 
God's  providential  hand. 

Of  course,  as  a  young  man,  if  I  go  I  must  go  as  a  young 
man,  and  submit  to  the  rules  of  young  men.  But  even  now 
if  I  were  married  it  does  not  follow  as  a  necessary  result  that 
I  should  be  refused.  So  that  we  have  everything  to  hope  and 
nothing  to  fear.  .  .  . 

I  am  very  poorly.  My  face  is  swelled  and  hard.  Some 
ladies  were  joking  me  last  night,  sending  me  home  for  my  wife 
to  make  me  some  gruel,  etc.  If  you  were  here  to  tell  me  it  was 
bad  and  would  soon  be  better,  etc.,  etc.,  it  would  not  be  half  so 
painful ;  it  makes  me  peevish.  Kate,  I  am  very  impatient. 
I  hear  you  say,  "  Ah,  William,  I  know  that  very  well !  "  / 
love  you.     I  zvant  to  see  you,  etc.,  etc. 

My  love  to  your  Mother.  I  hope  she  is  better.  Keep  your 
spirits  up;  mine  are  good  for  the  future.  Praise  God  for 
opening  this  door.  Remember,  although  I  have  declined  this 
invitation  of  Mr.  Cooke's,  I  have  not  shut  the  door.  Four 
years,  only  think.  I  hope  Heaven  has  much  happiness,  sweet, 
united,  shared  happiness  in  store  for  us  before  four  years  have 
fled  away.  Not  but  that  if  there  were  some  College  or  great 
advantages  I  would  think  of  it;  but  there  are  not.  .  .  . 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding, 
Thursday. 

My  own  sweet  Catherine  —  I  have  felt  very  sweetly  to- 
wards you,  my  dearest,  ever  since  I  received  your  last  kind 
letter.  That  letter  did  me  real  good,  and  yet  I  know  not  that 
it  was  more  kind  than  usual ;  at  all  events  it  was  more  cheerful 
and  cheering,  and  it  breathed  a  spirit  of  confidence  that  did 
me  good  and,  depend  upon  it,  I  have  felt  brighter  and  more 
tenderly  towards  you  ever  since  it  came  to  hand.  I  am  ver) 
anxious  to  hear  from  and  about  you. 

We  have  had  several  very  bad  cases  of  cholera  down  here 
near  Holbeach,  and  I  hear  from  the  papers  that  it  is  worse 
again  in  London,  and  I  do  hope  that  you  are  taking  all  the  care 
of  yourself  you  can.  I  am  pretty  well  in  health.  I  am  care- 
ful with  fruit,  indeed  I  am  not  tempted  to  eat  any  but  pears, 
and  although  a  lady  sent  me  a  basket  the  other  night  I  never  eat 
above  3  or  4  at  a  time,  and  I  should  not  think  they  would  hurt 
me.  I  hope  you  continue  improving  in  your  health ;  send  me 
exact  word.  I  am  doing  a  little  at  study,  but  not  so  much  as 
I  should  like  to  do.  I  should  almost  like  to  get  away  by 
myself  for  a  time  so  as  to  be  able  to  devote  all  my  time  to  close 
reading  and  thinking.  I  know  not  what  to  do  about  leaving. 
I  cannot  tell  you  whether  or  not  it  would  be  wise.     We  shall 


192  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

see.  Give  my  very  kind  love  to  your  dear  Mother  and  also 
remember  me  to  Miss  Smith,  if  she  has  returned.  I  hope  she 
will  recover  both  her  health  and  her  spirits.  I  hope  indeed 
that  she  will  be  able  to  forget  that  fellow  who  deceived  her  so 
painfully;  may  the  Lord  forgive  him,  it  is  hard  work  for  me 
to  do  so.  .  .  . 

I  have  received  yours  this  morning;  the  above  I  wrote  last 
night.  I  am  pleased  with  your  letter.  But  as  undecided  as 
ever  with  regard  to  leaving  here.  If  I  do  leave  at  Christmas  I 
should  very  much  like  to  have  the  intervening  six  months  to 
myself  and  go  to  Cotton  End  or  into  the  house  with  some 
minister.  I  am  gaining  a  little  more  love  for  study  and  feeling 
daily  my  own  deficiency.  But  I  know  not  what  to  do.  If  I 
thought  the  New  Connexion  was  prosperous  it  would  alter 
the  matter;  but  I  am  afraid  not.  I  know  all  that  Mr.  R.  says, 
and  I  have  weighed  it  well,  but  I  should  think  they  have  not 
one  sphere  of  usefulness  anything  like  the  one  I  occupy  in  its 
adaptability  to  suit  me.  I  tell  you  I  know  I  am  very  super- 
ficial;  you  know  I  am  —  at  least  /  knozv  it;  no  one  can  make 
me  think  otherwise,  because  it  is  the  truth,  and  here  I  have 
opportunities  of  getting  matter  that  I  should  not  among  them, 
coming  not  so  often  before  one  congregation,  but  that  is  not  all. 
However,  I  cannot  argue  the  matter  any  further;  we  must 
leave  it  awhile.  I  am  one  hour  all  but  decided  to  go,  and 
then  when  I  think  again  I  am  decided  the  opposite.  I  am  very 
pleased  you  went  to  see  Mr.  R.,  I  hope  you  will  go  again.  The 
next  seven  months  make  no  difference  to  my  ministerial  status, 
so  that  it  does  not  matter  whether  I  go  or  not  till  June.  I  am 
sorry  you  took  cold ;  I  do  hope  you  take  care  of  yourself.  It 
gives  me  great  pain  to  hear  of  your  continued  delicate  state  of 
health. 

HOLBEACH, 

Monday  morning. 

My  own  dear  Catherine  —  I  have  expected  a  line  from 
you,  but  have  not  received  one.  I  expected  it  because  I  think 
you  promised  it  in  your  last,  not  because  I  wish  you  to  send 
me  more  than  one  letter  a  week,  but  I  do  want  to  hear  you  say 
you  are  thoroughly  happy,  that  you  are  satisfied  with  the 
pianoforte,  and  that  you  are  well.  .  .  . 

I  am  thinking  that  the  next  ten  years,  if  we  are  spared, 
ought  to  be  the  brightest,  best,  freest  from  care  and  most 
useful  of  our  lives.  Oh,  shall  they  not  be  so?  I  am  trying. 
I  know  I  am  doing  more  than  before,  but  I  am  not  doing  what 
I  ought  to  do.  Oh  that  I  had  acquired  habits  years  back  that 
would  then  have  been  easily  formed  and  that  now  are  difficult 
to  acquire. 

I  had  a  pretty  good  day  yesterday  —  preached  from  "  Be 
not  deceived  "  at  night.     It  seemed  to  go  pretty  well,  I  thought 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS  193 

—  I  have  heard  no  opinion.  /  was  much  pleased  with  it. 
Although  I  worked  hard  yesterday  and  retired  at  ii.O,  much 
tired,  I  rose  this  morning  at  6.0  and  have  been  studying  and 
intend  continuing  through  the  day.  .  .  . 

Praise  God,  the  sun  shines.  My  heart  feels  freer.  M> 
conscience  and  my  will  are  living  in  sweeter  harmony.  My 
prospects  are  brighter.  My  confidence  in  you,  in  your  good 
heart,  and  in  your  large  soul  and  in  your  thoughtfulness,  is 
very  strong.  My  faith  in  my  own  affection  for  you  is  firmer 
and  more  unswerving.  Why  should  we  not  both  sing  and 
rejoice  and  praise  the  Lord?  .  .  . 

I  can  plainly  see,  my  dearest,  that  our  influence  over  each 
other  will  be  immense.  I  tremble  when  I  think  how  much 
apparently  during  my  last  visit.  I  exercised  over  you.  Oh, 
my  heart  must  be  thoroughly  Christ's.  .  .  . 

I  have  a  speech  to  make  for  a  Stone-laying  and  I  must  do  it. 
Mr.  Jonathan  Rowbotham  lays  the  Stone,  and  I  am  expecting 
to  follow  with  a  speech.  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  it  is 
yet  to  be.  It  will  be  one  source  of  my  great  pleasure  and 
profit  when  we  can  talk  over  our  feelings  about  truths  and 
subjects,  and  doubtless  it  will  be  to  you  also.  Remember,  you 
promised  to  try  and  write  something  for  the  Magazine.  I  will 
be  contented  when  you  have  tried,  whether  you  succeed  or  not. 
/  do  not  fear  your  succeeding. 

HOLBEACH, 

Monday  morning. 

My  own  dear  Katk  —  Somewhat  tired  I  sit  me  down  to 
write  you  my  Monday's  epistle.  I  preached  at  Holbeach  yes- 
terday twice,  and  at  Holbeach  Hurn  in  the  afternoon.  Good 
congregations  all  the  day.  In  the  afternoon  I  went  with  a 
local  preacher  planned  to  be  at  the  Hurn.  He  was  unwell,  so 
I  took  compassion  on  him  and  preached  for  him.  His  brother 
lent  us  his  gig,  and  I  drove  him  and  his  brother's  daughter 
there  for  the  night. 

At  night  I  preached  from  "  The  harvest  is  past  and  the  sum- 
mer is  ended,"  etc.  A  hard  time,  for  though  I  had  some  little 
liberty  in  talking  there  was  a  hard  feeling.  In  the  prayer- 
meeting,  no  visible  good  was  done.  I  have  heard  that  Mr. 
Molesworth's  governess,  for  whom  I  told  you  I  felt  concerned, 
has  got  salvation.     I  hope  it  is  true.  .  .  . 

I  am  still  whirling  about  the  country.  To-night  I  go  back  to 
Spalding.  Tuesday  to  Pinchbeck.  Wednesday  to  Suttleton. 
Thursday  a  special  sermon  at  Boston.  May  the  Lord  save 
and  bless  the  people !  Oh,  my  dear  Kate,  let  us  live  to  God. 
I  wish  all  this  writing  was  at  an  end.  and  that  you  were  here, 
mine,  in  my  arms.  And  yet  I  cannot  help  having  fears  and 
doubts  about  the  future.     How  I  wish  the  Reformers  would 


194  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

amalgamate  with  the  New  Connexion  or  with  the  Association 
and  that  all  this  agitation  were  ended. 

But  I  know  what  I  want.  I  know  what  I  must  have.  But 
I  don't  know  how  —  at  least  it  seems  as  though  I  don't  know 
how  —  to  get  it.  I  want  more  inward  power  and  life  in  my 
own  soul.  I  fully  believe  if  I  had  this  I  should  prosper  in  my 
work.  I  might  do  so  much  more  by  the  fireside  (of  the  people) 
if  I  were  living  closer  to  God,  but  my  best  efforts  and  desires 
—  I  fear  my  motives  —  are  not  so  pure  as  they  ought  to  be. 
Oh,  that  God  may  save  and  bless  me.  .  .  . 

But  I  am  always  running  before  to  find  doubts  and  fears ; 
mine  has  always  been  a  restless  and  dissatisfied  life,  and  I  am 
fearful  that  it  will  continue  so  until  I  get  safe  into  heaven. 

Believe  me,  Your  dearest  friend,  and  that  nearest  my  heart 
you  dwell. 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding. 

My  dearest  Kate  —  I  did  not  write  yesterday  because  full 
of  anxiety  and  care,  and  I  am  not  much  better  to-day.  I  hope 
you  are  well  and  happy  in  the  love  of  Jesus,  God's  well-beloved 
Son.  Although  cast  down  and  low-spirited  I  must  say  that 
God  has  been  blessing  me  of  late  and  watering  my  soul  from  on 
high.  I  am  determined  to  get  more  religion,  to  cleave  to  Christ, 
and  to  conquer  through  Him  all  temptation.  I  had  a  glorious 
triumph  on  Friday  and  it  has  been  better  with  me  ever  since. 

Mr.  Poole,  the  revivalist,  is  with  us,  and  I  like  him  much. 
He  is  rather  dark  and  heavy,  I  should  think,  in  his  preaching; 
but  he  arouses  the  people;  he  has  aroused  me,  and  that  is  just 
what  we  want.  In  this  respect  I  care  not  what  people  say 
about  "  alarming  preachers."  God  has  blessed  my  intercourse 
with  him,  hearing  him  tell  about  salvation  has  been  a  blessing 
to  my  soul.  I  am  living  near  to  the  Throne  of  Grace.  Help 
me  to  watch  and  pray.  And  let  us  seek  His  present,  full,  and 
free  salvation. 

Mr.  Poole  is  dissatisfied  with  things  as  they  are  and  medi- 
tates going  to  America  and  joining  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  I  should  almost  like  to  go  with  him ;  he  gives  a 
deplorable  account  of  the  deadness,  stiffness,  and  formality  of 
the  New  Connexion,  although  not  exactly  indisposed  to  join  it 
if  he  could  be  taken  into  full  Connexion,  having  a  wife  and 
five  children.  He  is  a  very  valuable  man,  just  fitted  to  stir 
up  a  slumbering  church.  However,  I  think  of  offering  my- 
self to  the  New  Connexion.  Ought  I  to  do  it  now  or  wait  a 
few  months?  If  they  are  low  and  yet  right,  we  ought  to  go 
and  try  to  raise  them.  I  hope  Poole  zvill  go.  He  is  a  blessed 
man,  and  yet  it  is  more  his  peculiar  ability  and  fire  than  his 
sanctified  soul;  here  is  a  great  difference  between  him  and 
Caughey.  But  he  prayed  magnificently  and  with  mighty  power 
last  night  at  the  School  Meeting. 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS       '  195 

Bless  you,  be  happy.  We  must  live  to  God.  He  will  guide 
us.  I  am  afraid  of  doing  wrong,  and  acting  hastily.  It  puts 
me  past  study  and  everything  else. 

I  love  you  very  much  and  I  am  sure  very  tenderly.  Take 
care  of  yourself ;  if  I  leave  at  Christmas  I  shall  come  up  and 
see  you.  They  tell  me  here  I  am  going  from  a  rising  pros- 
perous church  to  a  sinking  one;  it  is  not  out  yet;  I  know  what 
the  people  will  say  when  they  hear;  but  I  care  not  for  that. 
I  must  do  right. 

Oh  that  God  would  in  mercy  gain  your  father. 

Spalding, 
September,  1853. 

My  darling  Catherine  —  Your  very  affectionate  letter 
with  all  its  counselling  and  interrogatories  has  just  come  to 
hand  and  I  have  read  it  over  with  very  great  care.  I  assure 
you  my  heart  dictates  this  with  much  affection  for  you  and  the 
tenderest  concern  for  your  interests. 

I  am  very  sorry  you  do  not  like  Mr.  Rabbits'  style  of  ser- 
mon. I  am  afraid  that  you  will  often  have  to  mourn  in  the 
future  for  your  dear  Mr.  Thomas. 

I  should  like  very  much  to  see  you.  I  do  not  know  what 
you  would  think  of  Mr.  Poole.  He  is  very  extravagant,  but 
very  powerful.  His  great  theme  is  salvation  by  faith,  present, 
free,  and  full.  I  yearn  to  see  good  done.  I  rather  imagine 
that  our  ideas  may  not  be  alike  upon  revival  matters.  Many 
precious  souls  have  professed  to  find  the  Lord  this  week  under 
Mr.  Poole's  preaching.  .  .  . 

/  am  seeking  purity  of  heart.  Seek  it  with  me.  You  believe 
in  it,  that  Jesus'  Blood  can  cleanse  and  keep  clean,  and  it  is  by 
faith.  Oh,  God  is  striving  with  my  soul.  I  do  want  to  give 
myself  up  to  Him.     Lord  help  me. 

Mr.  Smith  is  going  to  Cotton  End.  I  am  sorry.  Lord  save 
him  from  deadness  and  formality.  I  wish  you  would  get  Fin- 
ney's Lectures,  the  Lives  of  Bramtvell,  Stoncr,  and  Johji  Smith. 
I  do  not  now  wonder  whether  I  ought  to  have  gone  to  Cotton 
End.  I  have  very  little  sympathy  with  the  spirit  of  Congre- 
gationalism. .  .  . 

The  great  doubt  I  have  and  which  has  staggered  me  for 
some  time  with  regard  to  joining  the  New  Connexion,  is  my 
being  so  superficial,  but  I  must  work  harder.  Be  happy ;  1 
love  you  dearly.  Praise  God  with  me  that  He  is  saving  me. 
You  have  often  prayed  for  it,  now  believe  for  yourself  also 
and  God  will  purify  your  heart  by  faith.  .  .  . 

My  health  continues  good.  My  spirits  are  better,  and  if 
I  have  a  good  week  next  week  in  my  ministrations,  I  shall  be 
on  the  mountain  top;  but  whether  up  there  in  the  region  of 
rejoicing  or  not.  a  settled  peace  is  my  birthright.     lie  bought  it 


196  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

for  me.     He  has  proposed  it  to  me,  offers  it  only  on  one 
simple  condition  —  believing  faith.     Lord,  I  do  believe. 

'Tis  done.     Thou  dost  this  moment  save. 
Redemption   through   Thy   Blood   I   have, 
And  spotless  love  and  peace. 

Whether  we  eat  or  drink,  we  will  do  it  to  the  glory  of  God. 

My  dearest  Kate — I  am  exceedingly  full  of  business  this 
morning,  just  snatch  a  moment  to  add  another  word  or  two  to 
the  scrap  I  wrote  yesterday.  I  intend  using  some  of  the  lead- 
ing ideas  you  gave  me  in  your  last  at  a  school-feast  to-night, 
that  is  if  I  can  get  the  outline  filled  up.  Bless  you,  I  do  hope 
your  health  is  better.  You  must  get  zvell.  I  do  hope  and 
trust  that  Dr.  Franks  knows  what  he  is  doing.  I  am  resting 
pretty  quietly  about  the  future.  Not  that  I  have  any  more 
confidence  in  the  future.  No.  But  I  have  more  confidence  in 
this  Circuit  and  the  hold  I  have  got  on  its  affections.  And  I 
am  hoping  that  it  will  amalgamate  and  take  me,  take  us,  along 
with  it.  The  weather  is  beautiful  and  the  country  charming. 
I  am  comforting  myself  with  the  idea  that  it  is  the  last  sum- 
mer we  shall  spend  apart.  I  do  trust  that  God  in  His  good 
pleasure  will  bring  or  allow  this  to  be  brought  about. 

Several  sudden  deaths  have  occurred  lately ;  they  make  me 
feel  solemn.  You  must  this  time  excuse  me  scrawling  so  and  I 
will  learn  better.  I  love  you,  my  dearest;  my  heart  is  and  has 
been  of  late  very  full  of  tender  affection  for  you.  Oh  for 
perfect  unitedness ;  I  think  if  we  are  allowed  by  Heaven  to 
be  united  outwardly,  we  shall  be  united  inwardly.  Oh  I  am 
sure  I  shall  count  it  my  highest  enjoyment  to  see  you  happy. . . . 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding. 
(Undated.) 

My  dearest  Love  —  Yours  is  just  to  hand.  I  am  thankful 
you  received  the  money  safely.  I  am  sorry,  very  sorry,  to  hear 
of  your  continued  ill  health.  Of  course  it  is  very  painful,  while 
I  feel  tolerably  well  myself,  while  everyone  around  me  makes 
merry  and  looks  well,  that  you  continue  prostrate.  And  yet 
for  some  reason  I  do  not  feel  your  symptoms  are  anything  like 
serious,  that  is,  I  have  no  fear  of  your  recovery.  I  will  pray 
that  it  may  be  speedy.  Oh,  that  I  may  be  enabled  to  say  from 
my  heart,  God's  will  be  done. 

Now  to  answer  your  letter.  In  the  first  place,  I  must  tell 
you  that  the  sermon  on  Sunday  morning  did  execution.  No 
sermon  of  mine  has  attracted  such  notice  here.  But  unfor- 
tunately the  weather  was  most  stormy,  so  that  I  had  but  half  a 
congregation.  At  night  I  preached  from  the  '*  Water  of  Life," 
John  iv.  14.     A  precious  time  I  had  and  felt  the  greatest  liberty. 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS 


197 


Last  night,  fair  night.  I  preached  from  "  Unto  you  which 
beHeve  He  is  precious."  Many  said  1  should  have  no  people, 
it  being  Fair  time,  but  I  had  the  place  full  and  a  sweet  time. 
It  was  precious  to  my  own  soul. 

Yesterday  I  should  have  written  but  was  so  occupied.  I 
really  had  not  the  time. 

Mr.  Shadford  disapproved  of  my  having  laid  out  so  much 
money  on  that  piano.  He  says  he  wants  to  see  me  do  well  and 
does  not  want  to  see  me  in  poverty  all  the  way  through  life, 
and  he  thinks  a  comfortable  position  is  only  to  be  gained  as  he 
has  gained  his,  by  strict  economy.  /  hai'e  my  ozvn  views. 
Your  happiness,  your  well-being,  and  the  getting  all  the  com- 
fort you  can  out  of  money,  those  are  my  mottoes  at  present. 
How  can  I  make  the  money  go  the  furthest  to  promote  your 
blessedness  and  thereby  my  own  —  ours,  ours?  Give  my  love 
to  your  dear  mother  and  thank  her  for  me  for  her  kindness  to 
you. 

Red  Lion    Street. 

My  own  darling  Katie  —  Oh  how  I  wished  yesterday 
evening  that  I  had  wings  to  fly  to  you  to  hide  my  head  in  your 
bosom  and  listen  to  your  sweet  comforting  voice.  I  am  sure  I 
scarce  have  ever  yearned  for  your  presence  more  than  last 
night.  But  I  am  always  wanting  by  night  and  by  day.  And 
the  time,  I  suppose,  will  come  all  zuell  when  I  shall  have  my 
desire  and  have  you  alzvays  zvith  me. 

The  District  Meeting  yesterday  was  a  poor  afifair.  Got 
myself  a  little  insulted;  a  large  Meeting  yesterday,  it  is  true,  at 
night.  Spoke  with  some  considerable  liberty  and  was  well  re- 
ceived. Came  home  more  than  ever  out  of  love  with  the  Move- 
ment generally,  and  more  in  love  than  ever  with  my  own  Cir- 
cuit, and  half  resolved  to  write  off  directly  and  offer  myself 
to  the  New  Connexion.  But  I  must  learn  to  wait.  Mr.  Staf- 
ford, Mr.  Hardy,  Mr.  Brown,  and  others  from  our  Circuit 
strongly  pressed  a  motion  in  favour  of  amalgamation  with 
the  New  Connexion,  but  it  was  lost.  I  supported  it  of  course 
very  warmly.  I  am  thankful  our  people  are  so  unanimows  on 
the  matter.  It  is  a  good  sign  for  the  future  and  augurs  success 
for  my  plans  and  schemes.  There  were  men  there,  and  there 
are  many  Gazes  and  Hazledines  and  Burts  and  others  whom 
the  New  Connexion  would  do  better  without  than  with.  But. 
however,  no  more  on  that  score.  You  will  post  your  letter  to 
me  on  Thursday.  You  will  not  forget  a  few  ideas  for  a 
school-speech.  I  have  one  on  Friday  at  Holbeach,  a  public 
meeting  at  Suttleton  on  Monday.  Hanks  and  his  wife  were 
at  Boston  last  night.  I  believe  he  is  a  new  man;  he  has  given 
over  smoking.  He  is  very  anxious  about  the  cause.  They 
intend  building  a  chapel  directly.     I  wish  them  well. 

And  now,  my  better  angel,  I  hope  you  are  well  and  happy. 


198  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Bless  you,  1  looked  over  a  heap  of  music  at  the  booksellers  this 
morning  to  try  and  find  something  to  send  you  but  could  not 
find  anything  I  liked.  I  reciprocate  all  the  sweet  feelings  you 
gave  expression  to  in  your  last,  and  I  do  most  earnestly  hope 
to  be  able  to  enter  into  your  feelings  and  to  help  in  every  sense 
of  the  word  to  make  you  happy.  Give  my  love  to  your  dear 
mother.     Whatever  you  do,  take  care  of  your  health.  .  .  . 

The  alternation  of  high  spirits  and  dejection  in  these 
letters  is  characteristic  of  the  writer's  temperament,  but  it 
may  in  great  measure  be  explained  by  the  alternation  of 
health  and  sickness.  William  Booth  suffered  throughout 
his  life  from  an  extreme  form  of  dyspepsia,  so  extreme, 
indeed,  that  he  was  obliged  at  last  to  study  every  morsel 
of  food  that  entered  his  body.  The  seeds  of  this  exhausting 
and  irritating  complaint  were  sown  in  youth,  when  he 
starved  himself,  worked  like  a  slave,  and  devoted  every 
hour  of  his  leisure  to  the  excitements  of  street-preaching; 
during  the  early  years  of  his  ministry  as  a  Methodist 
preacher  the  complaint  manifested  itself  so  unmistakably 
that  only  zeal  and  courage  of  an  unusual  order  could  have 
supported  him  in  his  work. 

The  following  fragment  of  a  letter  is  interesting  and 
surprising.  In  boyhood  William  Booth  had  loved  fishing; 
after  conversion  he  had  regarded  that  sport  as  a  form  of 
wickedness ;  but  here  he  is,  as  a  Methodist  preacher,  indulg- 
ing in  the  more  muscular  and,  as  some  people  would  say, 
the  much  more  cruel  sport  of  shooting.  Not  only  this,  but 
the  Old  Adam  is  so  strong  in  him  that  he  takes  pride  in 
recounting  his  prowess  to  the  woman  he  loves.  Unhappily 
no  reply  to  this  letter  from  Catherine  Mum  ford  is  to  be 
found.  One  thinks  that  she  smiled  on  reading  it,  and  then 
sat  down  to  write  a  very  solemn  sermon  to  her  y.outhful 
lover. 

HOLBEACH. 

I  received  your  kind  note  this  morning.  I  have  seen  The 
Times;  there  i^  nothing  in  it  respecting  either  the  amalgamation 
or  the  letter.  I  am  going  on  to  St.  Catherine's  this  afternoon. 
My  face  is  a  little  better.  Go  to  the  Concert  by  all  means ;  I 
should  be  angry  if  you  did  not.  The  day  is  very  fine  but  ex- 
ceedingly hot.  My  head  aches  a  little  and  I  still  continue,  as 
the  effects  of  my  last  week's  cold,  stiff  and  weary. 

I  did  last  Monday  (yesterday  week)  what  I  never  did  before 


xiv]  LOVE  LETTERS  199 

—  ventured  to  fire  off  a  gun !  The  first  three  or  four  shots 
were  failures ;  afterwards  I  was  declared  to  be  quite  a  marks- 
man. Yesterday  again  I  went  out  for  an  hour  or  two's  shoot- 
ing. And  they  pronounced  me  a  dead  shot !  Now  do  not  go 
and  scold  me  about  it,  and  thus  frighten  my  conscience  until 
I  cannot  enjoy  it.  I  am  pleased  you  liked  my  letter.  I  hope 
it  will  do  you  good.     You  shall  hear  from  me  again. 

PS. —  Heaven  bless  you. 

The  letters  which  follow  were  written  at  the  beginning  of 
1854,  and  show  that  William  Booth  has  at  last  made  up  his 
mind  to  leave  Lincolnshire  and  return  to  London. 

Red  Lion  Street, 
New  Year's  Eve. 
My  dearest  precious  Catherine  —  Your  very  sweet  letter 

—  almost  the  most  cheering  and  blessed  you  have  ever  sent  me 

—  came  safe  to  hand  this  morning ;  after  a  long  walk,  right 
welcome  it  was.  and  be  assured  that  it  shall  for  once  be 
answered,  though  not  to-night  —  it  is  8  o'clock  and  I  have 
to  be  at  Chapel  by  10.  But  while  writing  other  letters  I  must 
just  drop  a  line  to  you,  and  yours  shall  be  responded  to  on 
Monday  all  well.  .  .  . 

Be  assured  I  am  pleased  much,  very  much,  with  your  re- 
vived and  soul-cheering  experience.  May  your  path  in  this 
matter  be  as  that  of  the  just,  shining  more  and  more  unto  the 
perfect  day.  My  heart  reciprocates  all  you  say  about  our 
future.  Nay,  I  am  thankful,  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  so, 
that  we  are  not  to  be  married  yet,  as  I  wish  to  make  myself 
more  worthy  and  more  adapted  to  you  —  and  better  fitted  to 
make  you  happy  before  the  consummation  takes  place.  I 
cannot  quite  so  confidently  as  you  rejoice  in  my  proposed  new 
step ;  there  is  a  dark  cloud  .  .  .  but  I  have  good  hopes  of  its 
dispersion.  It  is  so  many  and  so  very  kind  friends  I  am  leav- 
ing—  forsaking  of  my  own  choice,  and  a  sphere  which  is  so 
adapted  for  mc,  in  which  God  has  so  owned  and  blessed  me, 
and  for  one  so  different,  so  cold,  so  cramped,  of  which  I  am 
assured  on  every  hand,  on  authority  which  I  cannot  dispute, 
that  makes  me  sad  and  thoughtful,  if  not  fearful,  lest  the  step 
should  be  wrong.  You  see,  my  dearest  love,  you  sit  thor- 
oughly on  the  outside,  you  are  not  acquainted  with  the  prac- 
tised working  of  the  thing  —  you  study  the  theory  —  I  have 
long  since  been  satisfied  with  the  theoretical  part  of  the  new 
Connexion,  but  the  practical  working  of  it  is  another  matter; 
and  when  a  number  of  grey-headed  men  who  tell  me  that  they 
are  fearful  for  my  own  sake,  that  they  say  so  because  they 
love  me,  that  they  fear  T  am  stepping  out  of  the  order  of  Provi- 
dence, I  cannot  but  listen.  .  .  . 


200  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

But  I  did  not  intend  to  touch  this  subject  —  I  must  go  and 
risk  everything —  I  just  wanted  to  send  you  a  waft  of  love  and 
pure  and  ardent  affection,  and  to  kiss  this  sheet  and  envelope 
and  send  them  to  meet  vour  lips  on  Monday  morning.  .  .  . 

1854. 

Red   Lion    Street,   Holbeach. 

My  dearest  and  most  rRECious  Kate  —  I  write  you  a  line 
in  great  haste.  I  am  at  a  distance  from  the  post  office  and  have 
many  doubts  as  to  whether  I  shall  be  able  to  post  this  in  time 
before  I  go  away  this  evening.  I  hope  you  received  mine  this 
morning  posted  on  Saturday  evening.  I  accidentally  spied  the 
ribbon  at  Mr.  Handy's  and  thought  it  would  make  you  a  nice 
pair  of  strings  to  your  black  velvet  bonnet;  it  just  suited  my 
taste  and  I  thought  you  should  see  for  once  what  my  taste 
was. 

I  received  a  note  on  Saturday  from  Mr.  Rabbits,  stating  that 
it  was  agreed  that  I  should  go  and  live  with  Mr.  Cooke,  ac- 
cording to  my  request.  I  know  you  will  be  pleased  with  this 
arrangement ;  of  course  I  shall,  for  bringing  me  within  reach 
of  you,  and  we  must  have  fixed  rules,  etc.,  etc. —  I  do  hope  the 
Lord  will  bless  my  coming  up  to  town. 

We  had  a  very  good  day  at  Holbeach  on  Sunday,  9  or  10 
souls  found  the  Lord  at  night  —  some  very  interesting  cases. 
Last  night  at  Holbeach  Hurn  we  had  two  come  to  seek  the 
Lord  and  had  a  very  good  meeting  —  and  I  hope  we  shall  have 
more  to-night.  To  God  be  all  the  praise.  I  will  bring  that 
extract  from  the  Public  Good  with  me  when  I  come ;  I  think  it 
meets  my  views  —  I  still  have  to  contend  with  much  argument 
and  many  regrets ;  all  the  people  look  upon  me  as  one  madly 
leaving  the  path  of  Providence  with  my  eyes  wide  open.  Truly, 
if  my  way  is  not  plain  and  my  ministry  successful  when  I 
reach  my  new  sphere,  there  is  bitter  misery  and  very  painful 
regrets  for  me. 

But  we  will  hope  for  the  best.  I  hope  much.  Be  happy ; 
I  talk  about  you  and  think  about  you.  The  friends  consider 
you  have  a  hand  in  the  matter;  I  am  very  vexed  and  sorry 
that  they  do ;  it  is  my  work,  and  I  had  rather  they  thought  me 
capable  of  doing  it  myself.  Do  not  trouble  yourself  about  the 
money  for  the  piano,  I  shall  manage  until  I  come  up  for  money 
and  they  will  pay  then  —  sell  the  table,  if  you  can.  However, 
I  would  not  trouble  about  that  —  never  mind  it,  on  second 
thoughts.  It  is  probable  I  shall  be  in  London  about  the  third 
day  of  February,  and  being  as  I  am  coming  so  near  you,  and  as 
we  shall  have  abundant  opportunities  for  communication  and 
counsel,  I  had  better  name  that  time  to  Mr.  Cooke,  had  I  not? 
Send  me  word.  I  hope  you  are  happy  and  that  your  health 
is  rapidly  improving.  You  must  get  better  every  day  now  and 
that  as  quickly  as  possible.     I  do  hope  the  step  is  right  and  it 


XIV]  LOVE  LETTERS  201 

will  be  owned  of  the  Lord.  Oh  for  a  nearer  assumption  to 
Christian  character  —  I  must  thoroughly  commence  life  anew. 
Give  my  love  to  your  dear  mother.  I  sighed  out  your  name 
in  Spalding  pulpit  just  as  the  clock  struck  the  hour  of  midnight 
■ —  and  prayed  for  your  happiness  and  prosperity  during  the 
coming  year.  Write  me  a  line  directed  home  to  reach  there 
on  Friday.  Bless  you,  I  have  strong  faith  that  we  shall  yet  be 
very  happy.  Oh  1  know  I  love  you,  highly  esteem  and  love 
you,  and  I  know  you  love  me.  Oh  we  will  try  and  make  each 
other  happy.  .  .  . 

Red  Lion  Street,  Spalding, 
Jan.  6,  '54. 
My  Dearest  and  most  precious  Kate  —  It  does  indeed 
seem  a  long  time  since  I  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing  from  you. 
I  do  not  desire  you  to  write  of  tener  than  once  a  week ;  at  the 
same  time  your  letters  are  always  very  welcome.  I  am  sure  I 
long  very  much  for  your  company,  for  your  society,  and  your 
help.  I  have  felt  very  much  the  unpleasantness  of  being  com- 
pelled to  wait  so  long  before  we  could  be  united  since  we 
parted.  But  however  the  step  is  taken  and  it  must  be  en- 
dured with  as  good  a  grace  as  possible.  You  will  be  pleased 
to  hear  that  I  have  written  to  Mr.  Cooke  asking  to  come  up  to 
London  and  to  live  and  study  with  him  until  Conference,  and 
that  I  have  received  a  letter  this  morning  stating  that  he  will 
see  Mr.  Rabbits  and  the  other  friends  and  endeavour  to  make 
arrangements  for  my  doing  so.  It  will  be  very  pleasant  and 
we  must  make  it  profitable  our  being  so  near  one  another  once 
more.  If  it  can  be  brought  about!  I  am  very  anxious  to 
get  away  from  here  now  as  quickly  as  possible  —  some  whom 
I  deemed  my  fastest  friends  are  very  displeased  and  vexed 
with  me,  and  my  position  becomes  daily  to  my  feelings  more 
painful.  I  hope  it  is  for  the  best.  I  think  it  is.  My  mind 
is  much  more  composed  about  it  than  it  was,  and  I  hope,  if  I 
come  to  London,  to  spend  a  very  profitable  six  months. 

New  North  Road,  London. 
(Undated.     Probably  one  of  the  first  letters  after 
joining  the  New  Connexion.) 
My  dearest  Catherine — (After  references  to  meetings) 
—  And  now  I  want  to  tell  you : 

1.  That  you  must  write  to  me  of  tener  than  once  a  week. 
You  have  nothing  to  do  and  I  am  overwhelmed  with  business 
and  care,  and  I  cannot  exist  now  on  one  letter  per  week. 

2.  I  am  well  in  health  and  have  no  fear  or  feeling  about 
cholera.  When  I  say  T  am  well,  I  mean  I  am  very  much  better. 
My  appetite  is  good  and  my  digestion  is  improved. 

3.  Why  did  you  not  send  me  Mr.  Macland's  address?     I 


202      THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH      [chap.xiv] 

have  found  him  an  apartment.  They  are  keeping  it  and  cannot 
find  him. 

It  was  fooHsh  of  your  mother  to  send  the  letter  and  address 
to  Burnham.  .  .  . 

I  should  like  much  to  see  you.  I  have  wanted  you  this  last 
day  or  two  much.  I  am  for  Bristol  on  Saturday  and  the  fol- 
lowing week.  You  will  get  down  about  the  same  time.  In 
my  Monday's  note  I  said  that  the  "  Bridal  Waltz  "  was  4s. 
Shall  I  buy  it?  I  have  no  notion  of  giving  so  much  for  the 
Devil's  music,  but  your  will  shall  be  done. 

I  had  a  good  night  on  Sunday,  and  am  expecting  great 
things  at  Bristol.  The  friends  are  very  kind  and  Mr.  Bates 
is  in  excellent  spirits  about  things  and  quite  in  favour  now 
of  my  views.  In  fact,  we  have  some  very  encouraging  facts 
before  us. 

Believe  me,  my  dearest,  to  be  —  Your  affectionate,  constant, 
and  tender  William. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    EVANGELIST    TROUBLED    ABOUT    MANY    THINGS 
1854-1855 

A  STRANGE  Step  had  been  taken.  William  Booth,  the  fiery 
preacher  of  revivalism  in  Lincolnshire,  became  all  at  once  a 
humble  student  in  Regent's  Park,  surrendering  himself  to 
the  domination  of  a  Rev.  Dr.  William  Cooke,  theologian. 
From  excited  prayer-meetings,  from  furious  preachings,  and 
from  the  popularity  and  hero-worship  of  tea-parties,  this 
lion  of  Lincolnshire  suddenly  abased  himself  to  the  school- 
room, and  opened  Greek  and  Latin  grammars  with  a  valor- 
ous effort  to  acquire  the  habitual  meekness  of  a  divinity 
scholar. 

But  till  the  last  moment  he  hesitated,  and  almost  at  the 
last  moment  he  threw  himself  off  in  a  clean  contrary  direc- 
tion. In  January,  1854,  he  wrote  to  Catherine  Mumford 
from  Holbeach : 

The  plot  thickens,  and  I  hesitate  not  to  tell  you  that  I  fear, 
and  fear  much,  that  I  am  going  wrong.  (He  speaks  of  a  fresh 
offer  made  to  him  by  the  Reformers,  and  then  proceeds.)  My 
present  intention  is  to  tear  myself  away  from  all  and  every- 
thing, and  persevere  in  the  path  I  have  chosen.  They  reckon 
it  down  here  the  maddest,  wildest,  most  premature  and  hasty 
step  that  ever  they  knew  a  saved  man  to  take. 

To  this  and  another  similar  letter  Catherine  Mumford 
replied  in  wise  and  quieting  fashion : 

I  am  very  sorry  to  find  that  you  are  still  perplexed  and 
harassed  about  the  change.  I  did  think  that  there  were  con- 
ditions weighty  enough  to  satisfy  your  own  mind  as  to  the 
propriety  of  the  step,  and  if  not  I  begged  you  not  to  act.  Even 
now  it  is  not  too  late.  Stay  at  Spalding,  and  risk  all.  Pray 
be  satisfied  in  your  own  mind.  Rather  lose  anything  than  make 
yourself  miserable.  You  reasoned  and  suffered  just  so  about 
leaving  the  Conference,  and  yet  you  see  it  was  ris^ht  now.  I 
never  suffered  an  hour  about  it.  after  I  once  decided,  except  in 

203 


204  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  breaking  of  some  tender  associations.  Nor  do  I  ever  ex- 
pect to  suffer.  I  reasoned  the  thing  out  and  came  to  a  conclu- 
sion, and  all  the  Conference  battering  I  met  never  caused  me  a 
ten  minutes'  qualm. 

You  mistake  me  if  you  think  I  do  not  estimate  the  trial  it 
must  be  to  you,  and  the  influences,  and  the  circumstances  and 
persons  around  you.  But  remember,  dearest,  they  do  not  alter 
realities,  and  the  Reform  movement  is  no  home  or  sphere  for 
you ;  whereas  the  principles  of  the  Connexion  you  love  in  your 
very  soul.  I  believe  you  will  be  satisfied,  when  once  from 
under  the  influence  of  your  Spalding  friends. 

Anyway,  don't  let  the  controversy  hurt  your  soul.  Live 
near  to  God  by  prayer. 

That  she  herself  was  in  no  fixed  and  unshadowed  state 
of  peace  at  this  time  may  be  seen  from  the  following  letter, 
which  she  wrote  to  him,  so  far  as  one  can  judge,  a  week  or 
two  before  his  return  to  London : 

Bless  you,  my  precious  one,  how  I  long  to  see  you  to-night. 
I  have  not  been  at  all  well  since  Friday  evening,  and  the 
weather  being  very  wet  and  foggy  to-day  I  have  not  been  out. 
However  I  have  not  spent  an  unprofitable  or  useless  day.  I 
lay  in  bed  till  nearly  12  o'clock  reading  the  blessed  Bible,  and 
some  portions  of  the  Magazine,  and  praying  for  thee,  with 
special  reference  to  the  subject  of  thy  last  letter.  No  doubt, 
the  exercises  you  mention  were  the  result  of  temptation.  I 
only  wonder  Satan  does  not  harass  you  more  in  this  way, 
seeing  what  you  are  doing  with  his  Kingdom.  When  I  used 
to  try  and  serve  God  most  faithfully  and  do  most  I  used  to 
suffer  untold  misery  through  what  I  believe  now  was  pure 
temptation.  Oh  the  agonies  I  sometimes  endured  —  since  I 
have  been  more  indifferent  Satan  has  let  me  alone  {compar- 
atively), but  I  intend  to  provoke  him  again  to  open  warfare  if 
God  spares  me,  yea,  I  have  begun.  I  trust  the  Lord  has  de- 
livered thee,  and  that  this  has  been  a  day  of  peace  and  success. 
Only  mind  that  the  people  understand  what  religion  is,  and  thou 
need  not  fear  their  being  excited  —  there  is  the  most  glorious 
precedent  for  such  results.  I  believe  in  revivalism  with  all  my 
soul.  I  believe  that  it  is  God's  idea  of  the  success  of  the  gos- 
pel. Of  course  you  know  what  /  mean  by  revivalism,  the 
genuine  work  of  the  Spirit,  and  I  believe  these  are  such;  go  on, 
do  all  thy  duty  and  leave  results  with  God. 

I  do  wish  I  could  see  you  to-night ;  I  feel  tired  and  prostrate 
and  my  spirit  very,  very  tender ;  thy  sympathizing  voice  would 
be  sweet  indeed,  and  though  tired  I  could  welcome  thee  home 
with  a  smile,  and  lay  my  hand  on  thy  head  and  sympathize 
with  thee  in  thy  weariness.     Well,  it  will  soon  be  if  God  per- 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  205 

mits,  and  we  shall  indeed  be  one,  one  in  love.  Oh  blessed  lot 
and  hallowed  even  as  the  joy  of  angels  where  godliness  and 
love  unite  two  hearts  in  one.  Good-night  dearest,  I  sleep  with 
thy  loving  letter  in  my  bosom  and  sometimes  dream  about  thee. 
God  bless  thee.  I  often  think  about  that  night  thou  wast  so 
late  home  from  the  meeting  at  Mr.  Rabbits;  thy  tenderness 
of  manner  to  me  when  thou  first  came  in  has  never  passed 
away,  and  my  mind  seems  to  go  back  to  it  as  to  a  green  spot 
in  our  intercourse. 

The  meeting  of  the  long-separated  lovers  in  February, 
1854,  is  not  described,  but  from  an  autobiographical  frag- 
ment, written  many  years  afterwards  by  Catherine  Mum- 
ford,  one  gathers  that  happiness  co-existed  with  fresh  dif- 
ficulties in  this  reunion  which  was  not  destined  to  be  of  long 
duration : 

The  return  of  W.  to  London  was  to  me  of  course  a  cause  of 
extreme  gratification.  We  were  once  more  within  reach  of 
each  other.  Personal  communion  is  so  much  more  satisfactory 
for  the  interchange  of  thought  and  counsel  than  correspond- 
ence.    We  met  at  regular  intervals. 

One  of  the  first  things  I  insisted  upon,  after  our  engage- 
ment was  that  stated  times  should  be  fixed  for  our  meetings. 
It  was  always  a  point  of  conscience  with  me,  not  in  any  way 
to  allow  any  service  rendered  me  to  hinder  either  W.  or  any 
one  else  in  the  discharge  of  any  higher  duty. 

We  could  now  compare  notes  also  as  to  our  mutual  studies 
and  tasks  —  the  varied  plans  that  we  formed  for  future  useful- 
ness. It  was  no  little  gratification  to  me  also  to  know  that  W. 
was  once  more  devoting  his  time  to  mental  development.  I 
had  always  estimated  the  College  failure  as  a  calamity.  Per- 
haps I  over-estimated  those  literary  and  intellectual  oppor- 
tunities which  college  supplied  —  I  think  I  did,  in  view  of  what 
I  have  learnt  since  then.  Still  those  were  my  notions  at  that 
time,  and  I  regarded  this  present  arrangement  by  which  W. 
was  once  more  set  down  to  a  regular  course  of  study  as  a  sort 
of  modified  compensation.  Taking  all  things  into  considera- 
tion, therefore,  I  was  wonderfully  well  satisfied  with  the 
present  position  of  aflfairs,  and  was  very  grateful  to  God  for 
having  so  far  as  I  could  see  led  us  into  the  path  which  had 
every  likelihood  of  terminating  in  a  sphere  of  as  great  useful- 
ness and  happiness  as  I  could  have  ever  deemed  possible. 

Still  W.  was  not  satisfied.  To  tell  the  truth,  he  was  really 
unhappy,  almost  as  unsettled  as  ever.  The  first  part  of  his 
Spalding  life  was  in  some  senses  the  happiest  portion  of  his 
early  career.     He  was  contented,  and  having  known  nothing 


2o6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chaf. 

higher,  his  present  position,  with  its  immediate  prospects,  would 
have  been  as  Paradise  to  him  compared  even  with  that,  but  he 
had  tasted  of  something  which  in  his  estimation  presented  a 
superior  opportunity  of  usefulness  than  either  this  or  that. 
To  be  fully  understood,  I  must  go  back  a  little. 

Towards  the  latter  part  of  his  stay  in  Spalding,  he  had  fallen 
into  a  condition  of  great  mental  and  spiritual  depression.  The 
Devil  bufifeted  him  sorely.  He  was  a  prey  to  constant  tempta- 
tions, temptations  that  made  his  life  more  or  less  a  misery. 

Then  the  direct  results  in  the  shape  of  conversions  that  fol- 
lowed his  ministry  were  very  small  in  comparison  with  what 
he  felt  was  his  privilege  to  see.  He  had  come  in  the  past  to  be 
more  or  less  content  with  this  state  of  things,  but  varied  cir- 
cumstances and  influences  woke  him  up  out  of  his  slumber, 
and  he  upbraided  himself  continually  that  his  work  was  not 
more  productive. 

About  this  time  a  very  useful  preacher  ^  visited  the  Circuit. 
W.  had  heard  many  stories  of  the  results  that  followed  this 
man's  ministrations.  He  was  by  repute  a  plain,  simple 
preacher,  but  his  word  was  attended  by  a  power  that  was  very 
remarkable,  sinners  by  scores  being  brought  to  God  in  con- 
nection with  it. 

The  visit  of  this  preacher  was  looked  forward  to  by  W.  with 
considerable  interest,  he  reckoning  that  he  might  be  able  to 
learn  something  from  him,  and  resolved  to  watch  him  ac- 
cordingly. 

The  service  arranged  for  came,  and  the  Preacher,  and  W. 
was  there  to  learn  what  he  could  from  the  example.  And  he 
did  learn;  and  I  have  often  heard  him  say  that  he  derived  a 
lesson  that  made  a  mark  upon  his  own  after  life.  In  this  man 
of  God  three  things  were  made  strikingly  apparent  in  this  one 
service,  and  they  were  — 

1st.  Directness  of  aim.  Every  word  and  movement  indicat- 
ing that  he  was  determined  to  bring  that  audience,  young  and 
old,  into  harmony  with  God,  and  this  was  to  be  done  that  very 
night  before  he  parted  with  them  if  it  was  possible. 

2nd.  Simplicity  of  method,  the  simplest  words,  the  plainest 
illustrations,  the  most  homely  and  striking  facts  being  used 
throughout  the  discourse. 

3rd.  The  most  direct  dependence  upon  God  for  the  result. 

W.  went  home  that  night  a  wiser  man  and  in  his  chamber 
gave  himself  up  afresh,  promising  God  never  to  be  satisfied  in 
any  sermon  he  preached  to  sinners  without  seeing  some  souls 
at  least  yield  themselves  up  to  the  service  of  God. 

That  William  Booth  did  not  make  a  good  theological 
iThe  Rev.  Richard  Poole. 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  207 

student  goes  without  saying.  Into  the  speculations  of 
philosophy  he  never  entered,  and  for  the  laborious  study 
of  theology  it  is  quite  certain  that  he  could  never  have  had 
a  fruitful  inclination.  "  He  might  often  have  been  found," 
says  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker,  "  on  his  face  in  an  agony 
of  prayer  when  he  ought  to  have  been  mastering  Greek 
verbs."  Yet  he  was  conscious  in  himself  of  a  need  for 
knowledge,  and  agonized  more  often  than  was  good  for 
his  health  over  intellectual  deficiencies. 

Monday  —  Visited  the  British  Museum.  Walked  up  and 
down  there  praying  that  God  would  enable  me  to  acquire 
knowledge  to  increase  my  power  of  usefulness. 

The  call  to  active  work  interrupted  his  studies :  the 
thought  that  men  and  women  were  perishing  of  iniquity 
while  he  turned  the  pages  of  text-books  was  like  a  madness 
in  his  brain ;  he  spent  more  hours  than  was  wise  for  a  student 
in  preaching  religion  to  the  people  of  London.  On  the  very 
day  of  his  arrival  he  preached  in  Brunswick  Street  Chapel, 
"  when  fifteen  souls  sought  salvation."  A  month  after- 
wards he  was  conducting  services  in  Wapping,  probably 
his  first  acquaintance  with  East  London.  He  felt,  he  says 
in  his  diary,  "  much  sympathy  for  the  poor,  neglected 
inhabitants  of  Wapping  and  its  neighbourhood,  as  I  walked 
down  the  filthy  streets  and  beheld  the  wickedness  and 
idleness  of  its  people."  One  conjectures  that  those  poor, 
neglected  inhabitants  of  Wapping  made  a  more  poignant 
appeal  to  his  soul  than  the  dignity  of  a  theological  degree. 

In  spite  of  these  continued  preachings,  however,  the 
studies  of  William  Booth  progressed  satisfactorily.  He 
made  a  very  marked  impression  on  his  tutor,  whose  daughter 
was  converted  at  a  public  service  conducted  by  the  young 
student.  Whether  it  was  his  advance  in  theological  science, 
or  his  striking  power  as  a  preacher  that  impressed  the  tutor, 
certain  it  is  that  Dr.  Cooke  decided  to  propose  him  at  the 
very  next  Conference  as  Superintendent  of  a  circuit  in 
London.  This  amazing  proposition  staggered  William 
Booth,  and  he  uttered  a  heartfelt  and  most  earnest  nolo 
cpiscopari!  He  felt  himself  unfitted  for  the  work  of  super- 
intending other  ministers;  he  considered  himself,  and  one 


2o8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

thinks  rightly,  far  too  young  for  such  delicate  work  ;  further, 
his  inclinations  led  him  towards  more  direct  and  more 
active  fields. 

A  compromise  was  accepted.  By  William  Booth's  desire 
another  and  an  older  man  was  to  be  proposed  as  Super- 
intendent, and  he  himself  was  to  act  as  that  other  man's 
assistant.  This  appointment  was  ratified  by  the  Con- 
ference, which  also  granted  the  young  minister  an  unusual 
privilege  in  permitting  him  to  marry  at  the  end  of  twelve 
months.  Ministers  of  the  New  Connexion,  it  must  be 
explained,  worked  "  on  probation  "  for  four  years,  and  as 
a  rule  no  probationer  was  allowed  to  marry  till  the  expira- 
tion of  this  testing  period.  In  the  case  of  William  Booth, 
so  sure  was  the  Conference  of  his  ability,  that  this  unusual 
privilege  was  granted  in  a  welcome  that  was  described  as 
"  hearty  and  unanimous." 

In  making  this  announcement  to  Catherine  Mum  ford, 
William  Booth  wrote  that  "  for  some  unaccountable 
reason  "  he  felt  no  gratitude,  adding  that  the  news  did  not 
elate  him.  Catherine  Mumford,  on  the  other  hand,  was 
full  of  enthusiasm. 

Your  letter  this  morning  filled  my  heart  with  gratitude  and 
my  mouth  with  praise.  I  am  thankful  beyond  measure  for  the 
favourable  reception  and  kind  consideration  you  have  met  with 
from  the  Conference,  and  I  can  only  account  for  your  ingrati- 
tude on  the  ground  you  once  gave  me,  namely,  that  blessings 
in  possession  seem  to  lose  half  their  value.  This  is  an  unfor- 
tunate circumstance,  but  I  think  in  this  matter  you  ought  to 
be  grateful,  when  you  look  at  the  past  and  contemplate  the 
future.  However,  I  am.  This  comes  to  me  as  the  answer  of 
too  many  prayers,  the  result  of  too  much  self-sacrifice,  the  end 
of  too  much  anxiety,  and  the  crowning  of  too  many  hopes,  not 
to  be  appreciated ;  and  my  soul  does  praise  God.  You  may 
think  me  enthusiastic.  But  yoUr  position  is  now  fixed  as 
a  minister  of  Christ,  and  your  only  concern  will  be  to 
labour  for  God  and  souls. 

I  saw  that  in  all  probability  you  might  have  to  toil  the 
best  part  of  your  life  and  then,  after  all,  have  to  turn  to 
business  for  your  support.  But  now,  for  life  you  are  to 
be  a  teacher  of  Christ's  glorious  gospel,  and  I  am  sure  the 
uppermost  desire  of  your  soul  is  that  you  may  be  a  holy 
and  successful  one.  May  God  afresh  baptize  you  with 
His  love,  and  make  you  indeed  a  minister  of  the  Spirit! 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  209 

Happiness  came  to  William  Booth  in  the  almost  im- 
mediate call  to  fresh  efforts  at  reviving  religious  lite.  He 
worked  industriously  in  London  as  assistant  pastor  with  the 
Rev.  P.  T.  Gilton,  but  it  was  only  when  he  was  free  to  lead 
special  services  that  the  whole  force  of  his  personality  was 
behind  the  work.  He  described  Mr.  Gilton  as  "  stiff,  hard, 
and  cold ;  making  up,  in  part,  for  the  w^ant  of  heart  and 
thought  in  his  public  performances  by  what  sounded  like 
a  sanctimonious  wail."  To  William  Booth  zvant  of  heart 
was  the  great  infidelity,  but  he  held  nothing  in  more 
abhorrence  than  a  hollow  sanctimoniousness.  To  such  a 
man,  therefore,  it  must  have  been  purgatory  to  work  with 
Mr.  Gilton,  and  like  a  holiday  to  escape  from  him  into  the 
crusading  battles  of  a  fighting  religion. 

One  of  the  calls  came  from  Lincolnshire,  and  away  he 
raced  to  that  familiar  county  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of 
his  nature  to  fan  the  flames  of  this  hopeful  fire,  and  grateful 
to  be  unyoked  from  the  measured  paces  of  the  cold  Super- 
intendent. He  wrote  to  Catherine  IMumford  with  fresh 
ardour  and  new  conviction  of  his  manifold  successes: 

My  reception  has  been  exceedingly  pleasing.  Even  the 
children  laugh  and  dance  and  sing  at  my  coming,  and  eyes 
sparkle  and  tongues  falter  in  uttering  my  welcome.  Yes- 
terday I  had  heavy  work.  Chapel  crowded.  Enthusiasm 
ran  very  high.  Feeling  overpowering,  and  yet  not  the  crash 
we  expected.  My  prospects  for  usefulness  seem  unbounded. 
But  God  knows  best,  and  where  He  wants  me,  there  He  can 
send  me.  The  people  love  me  to  distraction,  and  are  ready  to 
tear  me  to  pieces  to  have  me  at  their  homes.  A  large  party 
was  invited  to  meet  me. 

And  again : 

Yesterday  I  preached  to  crowded  congregations,  and  we  had 
a  crushing  prayer  meeting.  Some  splendid  cases.  I  am  more 
than  ever  attached  to  the  people.  They  are  thorough-going 
folks.  Just  my  sort.  I  love  them  dearly,  and  shall  stand  by 
them  and  help  them  when  I  can. 

I  have  just  taken  hold  of  that  sketch  you  sent  me  on  "  Be 
not  deceived,"  and  am  about  to  make  a  full  sermon  upon  it. 
I  like  it  much.  It  is  admirable.  I  want  you  to  write  some 
short  articles  for  our  magazine.     Begin  one  and  get  it  done  by 


2IO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  time  I  come  up.  It  will  do  you  a  world  of  good.  I  am  sure 
you  can  do  it.  I  will  look  them  over  and  send  them  to  the 
editor. 

I  want  a  sermon  on  the  Flood,  one  on  Jonah,  and  one  on 
the  Judgment.  Send  me  some  bare  thoughts ;  some  clear 
startling  outlines.  Nothing  moves  the  people  like  the  terrific. 
They  must  have  hell-fire  flashed  before  their  faces,  or  they 
will  not  move.  Last  night  I  preached  a  sermon  on  Christ  weep- 
ing over  sinners,  and  only  one  came  forward,  although  several 
confessed  to  much  holy  feeling  and  influence.  When  I 
preached  about  the  harvest  and  the  wicked  being  turned  away, 
numbers  came.  We  must  have  that  kind  of  truth  which  will 
move  sinners. 

I  have  written  by  this  post  to  Dr.  Cooke.  I  tell  him  that 
I  am  in  love  zvith  no  half  measures,  and  I  am  determined  to 
seek  success.  I  am  doing  better  in  my  soul.  Am  resolved  to 
live  nearer  God,  and  put  confidence  in  Him.  Let  us  live  for 
Heaven ! 

To  these  triumphant  letters  Catherine  Mumford  replied 
with  a  like  enthusiasm: 

Bless  you !  Bless  you !  Your  note  has,  like  joy's  seraphic 
fingers,  touched  the  deepest  chords  in  my  heart,  and  what  I 
write  is  but  like  the  trembling  echoes  of  a  distant  harp.  If 
you  were  here,  I  would  pour  out  the  full  strain  into  your  bosom 
and  press  you  to  my  heart.  God  is  too  good !  I  feel  happier 
than  I  have  done  for  months.  You  will  think  me  extravagant. 
Well,  bless  God.  He  made  me  so.  Yes,  we  shall,  I  believe  it, 
be  very  happy. 

Do  I  remember?  Yes,  I  remember  all  that  has  bound  us 
together.  All  the  bright  and  happy  as  well  as  the  clouded 
and  sorrowful  of  our  fellowship.  Nothing  relating  to  you,  can 
time  or  place  erase  from  my  memory.  Your  words,  your  looks, 
your  actions,  even  the  most  trivial  and  incidental,  come  up 
before  me  as  fresh  as  life.  If  I  meet  a  child  called  William, 
I  am  more  interested  in  him  than  in  any  other.  Bless  you ! 
Keep  your  spirits  up  and  hope  much  for  the  future.  God  lives 
and  loves  us,  and  we  shall  be  one  in  Him,  loving  each  other  as 
Christ  has  loved  us. 

Thus  by  communion  our  delight  shall  grow ! 

Thus  streams  of  mingled  bliss  swell  higher  as  they  flow ! 

Thus  angels  mix  their  flames  and  more  divinely  glow ! 

The  success  of  William  Booth  as  a  preacher  was  now 
so  definitely  established  that  the  Church  to  which  he  had 
allied  himself  could  not  with  decency  forbid  his  acceptance 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  211 

of  the  invitations  which  began  to  pour  in  from  many  parts 
of  the  country.  There  were  those  among  the  authorities 
who  disHked  the  method  of  revivahsm ;  a  conservative  and 
orthodox  spirit  existed  in  the  New  Connexion  which  was 
distinctly  antagonistic  to  the  furious  crusades  of  their 
young  recruit;  nevertheless,  so  importunate  were  the  calls, 
so  manifest  the  triumph  of  the  revivalist,  and  so  cold  and 
dead  and  formal  was  the  general  life  of  the  Church,  that 
active  opposition  held  its  hand,  and  even  criticism  bated 
its  breath. 

After  the  visit  to  Lincolnshire  William  Booth  returned 
to  London,  but  was  soon  called  to  a  series  of  services  in 
Bristol.  From  Bristol  he  went  to  Guernsey,  where  his 
efiforts  seem  to  have  reached  a  remarkable  degree  of  success. 
"Last  night,"  he  writes  from  there  in  October,  1854,  "I 
preached  my  first  sermon.  The  congregation  was  middling ; 
very  respectable,  stiff,  and  quiet.  I  let  off  a  few  heavy 
guns  at  the  lazy  formality  so  prevalent,  and  with  some 
effect.  They  opened  their  eyes  at  some  of  the  things  I 
said."  Three  days  later  he  says :  "  My  preaching  is  highly 
spoken  of.  The  Lord  is  working.  I  trust  that  to-morrow 
we  shall  have  a  crash  —  a  glorious  breakdown."  Still  later : 
"  To-night  many  went  away  unable  to  get  into  the  chapel. 
The  aisles  were  crowded,  and  up  to  eleven  o'clock  it  was 
almost  an  impossibility  to  get  them  up  to  the  communion- 
rail,  owing  to  the  crush." 

When  he  departed  from  Guernsey  numbers  of  people 
came  down  to  the  pier  to  wave  their  adieux  to  him. 

That  he  was  modest  and  diffident  in  spite  of  his  popu- 
larit}'  as  a  preacher  is  clear  from  his  refusal  to  undertake 
a  visit  to  the  Potteries.  The  invitation  came  from  the 
President  of  the  Connexion,  who  was  quartered  at  Hanley, 
and  whose  chapel  was  said  to  be  "  the  largest  dissenting 
place  of  worship  in  the  world."  Despite  his  signal  success 
in  Guernsey,  William  Booth  declined  this  call  to  Stafford- 
shire. He  argued  that  "  he  was  too  young,  and  that  he 
had  but  recently  entered  the  denomination,  that  his  circuit 
would  suffer  by  his  prolonged  absence,  and  that  these 
irregular  services  would  hinder  him  in  preparing  himself 
for  the  ordinary  pastoral  duties  of  the  future."     In  spite 


212  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  the  cogency  of  these  arguments,  and  their  sincerity,  he 
was  finally  prevailed  upon  by  the  urgent  pressure  of  the 
President  and  many  leading  men  in  London  to  undertake 
this  fresh  labour  —  a  step  destined  to  affect  his  whole  after 
career. 

In  the  letters  which   follow  the  reader  will  obtain  not 
only  a  very  faithful  account  of  this  revival  in  the  Midlands, 
but  a  most  remarkable  insight  into  the  character  of  the 
revivalist.     The  change  in  him  since  his  going  to  Spalding 
is  obvious  in  every  letter,  and  although  he  still  expresses 
himself  roughly,  often  without  grace  of  any  kind,  one  is 
aware  of  a  deeper  sincerity,  a  quieter  judgment,  and  a  more 
exacting  conscience.     He  is  so  honest  a  man  that  in  the 
midst   of   a   triumphant   service   of   weeping  penitents   he 
questions    these    fervent    methods    with   a    self-detachment 
that  is  almost  intolerable,  and  writes  to  Catherine  Mumford 
telling  her  so.     At  one  moment  he  is  swept  away  by  a 
feeling  of  passionate  anxiety  to  reach  and  save  perishing 
humanity,  at  the  next  he  is  cast  down  in  his  own  soul,  and 
cries  out  that  he  is  the  very  prodigal  of  Christ.     To  his 
betrothed  he  shows  himself  with  amazing  candour  in  every 
word  that  surges  through  his  mind ;  he  never  poses  before 
her ;    he    never    pretends ;    he    never    acts ;    whatever    his 
state  of  soul  —  there  it  is  for  her  to  see  —  the  man  of  God 
seeking   for   God,    the   preacher   of    righteousness   himself 
thirsting  for  righteousness,   the  popular  and  pious  young 
minister  imploring  the  woman  he  loves  to  pray  for  him  and 
help  him  to  dedicate  himself  anew  to  the  service  of  Christ. 
And  with  all  these  cries  of  a  soul  not  yet  set  upon  its 
true  course,  there  is  a  simple,  a  childlike,  and  sometimes  a 
most  quaint  humanity  in  these  letters  which  make  them  a 
veritable  autobiography.     He  discovers  that  it  is  his  birth- 
day only  by  writing  the  date  to  a  letter;  clerical  collars 
annoy  him;  he  asks  his  fiancee  to  order  renewals  for  his 
wardrobe;  he  tells  her  that  cotton  buttons  get   spoilt  by 
washerwomen;  he  describes  how  a  cabman  was  not  content 
with   half-a-crown,    but   blustered    for    three    shillings;   he 
narrates   his   experiences   with   "  globules "   and   the   cold- 
water  cure;  he  offers  to  buy  his  fiancee  a  silk  dress  with 
flounces,  and   refuses  to  buy  the  silk  unless  she  has  the 


'^vj  MANY  TROUBLES  213 

flounces;  he  tells  how  his  linen  is  wearing  out;  he  describes 
the  fine  houses  and  the  fine  people  with  whom  he  stays ; 
he  confesses  that  he  has  only  fifteen  shillings  in  the  world; 
he  tells  how  he  wanted  to  knock  down  a  young  gentleman 
of  seventeen  who  was  rude  to  his  mother.  All  these  con- 
fessions make  the  man  more  real  and  human  to  the  reader; 
his  little  controversies  with  Catherine  Mumford  incline  us 
to  think  that  on  such  occasions  at  least  his  common  sense 
was  wiser  than  her  intellectual  sharpness ;  his  gentleness 
with  her  under  repeated  admonishment  —  particularly  when 
one  remembers  that  he  was  a  dyspeptic  —  endears  him  to  the 
reader  as  a  large-hearted  and  tolerant  man.  But  most  of 
all  these  letters  are  interesting,  deeply  and  searchingly 
interesting,  as  the  revelation  of  a  man's  struggle  for  spiritual 
perfection.  They  are  above  everything  else  the  letters  of 
a  perfecdy  moral  and  a  perfectly  honest  follower  of  the 
ideal  Christ,  who  feels  in  himself  the  lack  of  some  complet- 
ing harmony,  and  who  cannot  find  rest  for  his  soul  until  his 
whole  spirit  is  merged  and  lost  in  the  Divine  approval. 

Bridge  Street,  Longton, 
Staffordshire  Potteries. 

My  dearest  Katie  —  Here  I  am  safe  lodged  amid  as  many 
comforts  as  I  can  well  desire.  I  had  rather  a  dreary  and 
tedious  journey,  and  when  I  arrived  at  Stoke  the  last  train  had 
gone  to  Longton,  so  I  had  3  miles'  walk  through  the  wind  and 
I  have  not  yet  got  my  bag  and  things  from  the  Stoke  station 
where  I  left  them.  I  am  staying  at  the  Robinsons',  he  is  Mr. 
Proctor's  brother.  Mr.  Boycot  the  super,  was  awaiting  my 
arrival.  I  anticipate  much  real  assistance,  pleasure,  and  profit 
from  his  co-operation.  He  appears  a  very  nice  man.  I 
thought  much  about  you  in  the  rail  —  I  hope  you  are  well  and 
very  happy.  I  do  trust  that  a  future  is  before  us,  just  such  a 
one  as  you  desire;  I  am  anxious  that  it  should  be  so.  Bless 
you,  my  affection  for  you,  I  trust,  has  a  good  influence  on  my 
heart,  I  think  it  helps  to  make  me  a  purer  and  a  better  man ; 
I  thought  so  in  the  carriage  yesterday. 

I  have  once  more  started  afresh  for  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
I  am  desirous  of  making  a  good  impression  here  and  I  feel 
that  much  may  be  done  out  of  the  pulpit,  and  I  am  determined 
that  it  shall.  I  am  pretty  well  in  health,  and  hope  to  continue 
so.  ...  I  commence  work  to-night ;  a  good  deal  of  expectation 
is  abroad,  large  posting  bills  are  all  over  the  town  and  neigh- 
bourhood.    I  trust  much  good  will  be  done ;  I  know  you  will 


214  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

pray  for  me ;  I  shall  be  very  anxious  till  to-night.  Indeed  I 
have  had  a  very  restless  night  and  am  very  nervous  this 
morning. 

I  do  trust  that  you  will,  my  dearest,  be  very  happy ;  take 
great  care  of  your  health  this  damp  weather,  and  do  not  on 
any  account  be  venturesome ;  always  wrap  up  well  when  you 
go  out  —  I  will  comply  with  these  counsels  myself.  It  is  a 
desolate  morning  and  the  most  desolate-looking  place  I  think 
I  ever  saw,  but  all  will  be  well  and  the  place  will  be  lovely  in 
my  eyes  if  sinners  are  converted  and  Jesus'  grace  is  made 
manifest. 

Now,  my  own  Kate,  do  give  up  your  heart  entirely  to  the 
Lord  and  let  us  seek  to  make  our  intercourse  a  means  of  mu- 
tual religious  benefit  when  our  love  is  sanctified  and  hallowed. 

Do  not  write  a  long  letter  to  Miss  Mackleed ;  you  have  not 
time.  Do  not  write  long  letters  to  any  one  but  me ;  it  is  not 
well.  It  rains  very  fast  and  seems  to  bid  fair  for  a  thorough 
wet  day;  if  so  it  will  injure  our  congregation  much  to-night. 
You  may  expect  a  long  letter  from  me  with  the  first  news  I 
have  to  send.  Direct  to  me  at  J.  L.  Robinson,  Esq.,  Solicitor, 
Longton,  Staffordshire  Potteries.  I  cannot  write,  do  as  I  will. 
So  I  will  conclude,  remaining  your  dear  and  affectionate 

William. 

Longton,  Jany.   ^th,   1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Kate  —  I  expected  a  line 
from  you  this  morning  and  felt  somewhat  disappointed  at  its 
non-arrival,  but  I  anticipate  this  pleasure  to-morrow.  I  hope 
you  are  very  well  and  very,  very  happy.  Bless  you,  I  am  more 
so  than  for  some  time  of  late  for  one  or  two  reasons,  first  our 
union  is  more  perfect  —  our  feelings  more  reciprocal  and 
hearty,  and  my  love  for  you  more  calm  and  tender.  My 
thoughts  stray  to  you  much  when  alone,  and  after  times  of 
excitement  and  effort  I  fall  back  upon  you  in  thought  and  im- 
agination as  I  shall  do  in  reality  in  the  future,  for  repose  and 
peace  and  happiness. 

This  is  the  most  dreary  and  unsightly  place  I  ever  was  in ; 
the  weather  being  gloomy  and  rainy  does  not  at  all  add  to 
its  pleasing  effect.  The  work  of  God  at  present  is  heavy,  very 
heavy.  I  did  not  preach  with  pleasure  to  myself  nor  with 
much  influence  last  evening,  as  I  thought ;  the  congregations 
are  very  good,  the  chapel  is  very  large,  we  have  had  8  peni- 
tents, none  very  important,  altho'  some  I  trust  satisfactory 
cases.     We  must  pray  on  —  our  dependence  is  upon  God. 

I  forgot  to  say  that  a  second  source  of  joy  to  me  was  that 
I  feel  that  I  have  begun  to  live  afresh.  You  will  rejoice  my 
dearest  in  this  and  you  will  join  me  in  the  like  consecration. 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  215 

Oh,  how  much  we  owe  to  Him!  —  shall  we  not  render  up  the 
entire  service  of  heart  and  life? 

If  anything  strikes  3'ou  in  the  course  of  your  reading  or 
meditation  likely  to  be  useful  to  me  put  it  down  on  paper  kept 
on  purpose  and  then  tell  me  of  it  when  we  meet. 

LoNGTON,  Monday,  Jany.  Sth. 

My  dearest  and  precious  Love  —  I  have  been  out  until 
just  now,  4  o'clock,  with  the  preachers  —  I  must  find  out  some 
plan  to  avoid  going  out  except  for  service,  tho'  it  be  at  the 
risk  of  giving  offence.  I  refuse  many  invitations  —  I  am  de- 
sirous of  standing  well  with  the  preachers  and  have  therefore 
been  to  see  them.  I  snatch  a  moment  for  you,  and  will  send 
you  a  long  letter  at  my  first  opportunity.  Yesterday  was  a 
grand  day  —  at  night  I  suppose  50  or  60  penitents.  Large  con- 
gregations and  deep  interest.  Mr.  Ridgeway  came  over  in  the 
afternoon  to  see  me.  He  is  a  fine  man ;  quite  the  gentleman 
and  Christian.  I  am  to  stay  with  him  and  to  be  according  to 
his  promise  "  as  happy  as  a  prince."  They  are  making  great 
preparations  at  the  Hanley  Chapel  and  expecting  great  things. 
I  trust  a  good  work  has  begun ;  but  will  send  you  more  par- 
ticulars in  my  next. 

I  trust  my  dearest  that  your  cold  is  much  better,  I  am  very 
sorry  for  you.  I  often  think  about  you,  and  think  about  you 
as  you  wish.  Pray  for  me  —  I  do  for  you.  Oh  to  live  better, 
more  to  the  purpose ! 

PS. —  This  note  is  only  an  excuse,  you  shall  have  if  possible 
a  letter  to-morrow.  Love  to  your  dear  mother.  Take  plenty 
of  Cayenne  for  your  throat. 

LoNGTON,  Jany.   10,   1855. 

Mv  dearest  Love  —  Your  very  kind  and  affectionate  letter 
came  to  hand  this  morning  —  I  should  have  written  yesterday 
had  I  had  time.  I  am  glad  your  throat  is  better  altho'  I  have 
more  faith  in  the  Cayenne  than  in  the  globules.  I  think  you 
should  have  persevered  with  the  former,  but  as  you  zvill;  only 
do  what  you  can  to  prevent  as  well  as  to  cure.  I  think  my 
health  continues  as  good  as  when  I  left  London  —  I  am  taking 
all  possible  care  of  myself.  The  friends  are  very  kind  and 
anxious  to  promote  my  well-being  in  every  way  they  can.  I 
hope  you  are  very  happy ;  bless  you ;  I  think  much  about 
you  and  should  much  like  your  presence  and  society  here.  T 
care  less  perhaps  than  ever  about  other  company  and  prefer 
quietness  and  solitude,  or  yourself,  to  visiting  or  talking  to 
others.  I  am  determined  to  carry  this  idea  out  in  practice  if 
possible  in  the  future. 

The  revival  is  progressing  with  mighty  power  and  influence. 


2i6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Several  very  interesting  cases  have  transpired  —  and  some  im- 
portant persons  have  been  converted.  We  are  working  more 
by  rule  and  with  more  order  than  I  have  ever  attempted  before. 
We  had  two  persons  in  the  vestry,  one  a  grey-headed  old  mem- 
ber and  the  other  a  young  man  converted  on  Sunday,  a  clerk  of 
Mr.  Robinson's ;  these  take  the  names  of  the  persons  who  find 
salvation  in  a  book  ruled  on  purpose  in  columns  headed, 
"  Name  "  "  Address."  Whether  a  member  before,  if  so  of 
what  class  or  church  ?  Whether  they  will  meet  in  society  with 
us,  if  so  in  what  class?  Whether  they  prefer  any  other  church, 
if  so  which?  Whether  married  or  single,  and  other  remarks. 
Then  one  or  two  persons  are  stationed  around  the  communion 
rail  who  take  the  persons  into  the  vestry,  and  thus  you  see  we 
are  doing  what  we  can  and  as  well  as  we  can.  We  have  taken 
down  about  140  names  and  a  great  number  of  persons  are  under 
deep  conviction.  The  congregation  last  night  was  very  large 
and  we  are  expecting  the  chapel  crowded  to-night.  I  am  very 
sorry  that  many  of  the  more  respectable  of  the  seat-holders 
keep  aloof  —  it  is  an  important  matter  when  the  head  of  a 
family  not  only  refuses  to  come  but  exerts  his  influence  to  keep 
others  away  likewise.  It  is  so  with  many,  I  fear,  here.  Mr. 
Boycot  came  to  see  me  last  night  and  told  me  of  one  family 
in  the  chapel  all  of  whom,  father,  mother,  sons,  and  daugh- 
ters (young  men  and  young  women)  were  under  deep  convic- 
tion. But  they  went  away  resisting,  at  least  undecided,  I 
hope  to  come  back  again  and  find  mercy.  .  .  . 

Cauldon  Hall,  Staffordshire, 
Jan.  i2)th,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Catherine  —  I  have  just 
received  something  like  certain  information  that  my  destination 
is  to  be  the  Staffordshire  district  for  the  next  month  at  least, 
very  probably  up  to  Conference.  I  hasten  to  apprise  you  of 
this.  Letters  have  been  received  from  Messrs.  Bates  and 
Rabbits  consenting  to  this  arrangement.  Mr.  Downs,  a  very 
popular  man  among  the  Reformers,  has  recently  joined  our 
Ministry,  and  he  is  coming  to  supply  for  me  this  month.  He 
has  been  described  to  me  as  being  very  efficient  and  therefore 
I  trust  my  London  friends  will  be  satisfied ;  there  can  be  no 
question  but  my  Superintendent  will  be  content  if  not  rejoiced. 

Now  I  shall  want  you,  dearest,  in  the  course  of  next  week 
to  go  over  to  Mr.  Jones,  look  over  the  room  and  put  away  all 
my  papers.  I  will  send  you  my  key  and  you  must  send  me  the 
manuscripts  I  mention.  .  .  . 

Monday  morning. —  Yours  came  to  hand  and  was  read  with 
great  pleasure ;  I  am  pleased  you  are  better  and  that  you  are 
getting  on  comfortably.  Do  not,  my  own  dear  Love,  in  any 
way  pine  about  my  absence ;  I  am  grieved  that  you  should. 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  217 

I  think  that,  all  things  considered,  it  will  be  as  well  if  I  am 
away  a  little  longer.  And  we  shall  soon  meet,  all  well,  on 
different  terms. 

Yesterday  I  took  the  pulpit  in  this  immense  chapel  —  the 
congregation  this  morning  was  very  good,  probably  1,500 
people ;  at  night  the  place  was  full,  over  2,500  were  present. 
It  was  an  imposing  sight  when  all  rose  up  to  sing.  What  a 
responsibility  to  have  to  preach  to  them.  The  Lord  helped  me 
to  say  a  few  words.  In  preaching  both  morning  and  evening 
I  was  much  blessed.  At  night  we  took  the  names  of  24  per- 
sons who  professed  to  find  peace ;  it  was  not  so  great  a  number 
as  I  had  hoped  for  —  but  I  trust  the  success  will  increase  as 
the  work  advances. 

I  am  middling  in  health ;  quite  as  well,  if  not  better,  than 
when  I  left  London.  I  will  put  some  salt  in  my  water  before 
I  sponge.  I  am  living  right,  and  I  want  to  do  so,  God  help 
me.  Pray  for  me.  My  continuance  away  from  London  will 
only  be,  as  you  intimate,  just  as  the  work  of  God  needs  it; 
for  instance,  if  a  good  work  progresses  I  shall  stay  in  Hanley  a 
fortnight  and  then  go  back  to  Longton  for  a  little  time  —  with 
a  little  rest  bctzveen. 

If  you  go  to  the  Tea  Meeting,  stay  all  night  at  Mr.  Love's 
and  in  the  morning  you  can  clear  away  all  the  papers  and  wrap 
the  cap  in  a  parcel,  and  stow  them  away  somewhere.  Wrap 
up  Thomas's  books ;  you  will  find  them  in  a  cupboard  under 
the  other  books ;  I  should  like  to  keep  them  clean,  etc. 

I  will  send  you  word  if  I  want  anything.  I  am  in  need  of 
shirts  the  worst  of  anything.     But  we  shall  see. 

Now,  my  own  sweet  Kate,  do  be  happy.  I  shall  see  you 
again  very  soon,  a  month  or  5  weeks  at  the  farthest,  because  I 
shall  come  up  at  the  opening  of  the  Haliwell  Mount  Chapel  — 
40  reformers  with  100  Sunday  scholars  offered  to  join  us  and 
worship  in  it.  Farewell.  Heaven  bless  you  with  every  mercy 
and  all  the  grace  you  need.  .  .  . 

Enclosure : 

From  "  The  Staffordshire  Sentinel." 

"  Zion  Chapel,  Longton.  A  series  of  revival  services  have 
been  held  in  the  above-named  place  of  worship.  On  Wednes- 
day 3rd  the  Rev.  Wm.  Booth  of  London  preached  and  con- 
tinued the  services  each  evening  until  loth.  The  effect  of  the 
Revd.  gentleman's  preaching  was  truly  astonishing;  his  view 
of  the  Christian  religion  was  clear,  his  delivery  powerful, 
melting  his  audience  to  tears ;  a  hallowed  influence  pervaded 
the  assemblies  congregated  to  hear  him  during  his  stay  in 
Longton.  The  effect  of  his  eloquence  tells  amazingly.  He 
reminds  his  hearers  of  J.  B.  Gough ;  with  every  argument  he 


2i8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

carries  conviction  to  the  heart.  His  glowing  language,  his 
startling  incidents,  his  appeals  to  the  judgment  of  his  hearers 
are  of  no  ordinary  character,  and  the  impression  made  upon 
his  auditory  will  not  be  readily  effaced  and  the  happy  results 
of  his  labours  is  an  accession  of  about  150  members  to  the 
church." 

PS. —  Do  not  show  or  read  this  to  any  one  except  your 
mother  —  of  course  I  do  not  believe  or  assent  for  one  minute  to 
the  truthfulness  of  these  remarks  made  by  an  unknown  friend 
—  I  should  think  from  the  inaccuracy  of  the  date  and  number 
some  outside  hearer  or  member  of  another  Church  wrote  it. 

Cauldon  Place,  Shelton,  Staffordshire, 
Jany.  16th,  '55. 
My  dearest  and  most  precious  Katie  —  The  work  is  pro- 
gressing most  satisfactorily ;  last  night  I  had,  Mr.  Ridgeway 
says,  2,000  persons  to  hear  me  preach,  and  the  Lord  helped  me 
to  preach  and  afterwards  we  took  down  40  names  —  I  have  a 
splendid  band  of  assistants.  Some  of  the  finest  working  men  I 
ever  met  with  in  a  prayer  meeting  in  my  life.  The  Revd.  A. 
Lyn,  the  father  of  Mr.  Lyn  who  was  with  me  at  Mr.  Cooke's 
has  just  been  in;  he  is  a  blessed  man,  a  second  Charles  Rich- 
ardson ;  he  has  come  over  to  spend  a  night  or  two.  Mr.  Lyn's 
son  likewise  came  in  this  morning  to  stay  over  to-night,  so 
we  shall  have  plenty  of  help.  You  must  pray  for  me,  my 
dearest,  and  God  grant  you  may  yourself  be  refreshed  and 
blessed.  I  thought  about  you  much  last  night.  After  the 
toil  and  anxiety  and  excitement  of  the  day  is  over,  I  generally 
go  to  sleep  thinking  about  you  and  calling  your  image  up  to 
my  recollections.  Bless  you,  I  hope  to  haye  a  letter  from  you 
to-morrow.  The  work  is  proceeding  with  mighty  power  at 
Longton,  about  40  have  been  converted  since  I  left,  and  they 
are  expecting  my  return,  and  I  have  no  doubt  if  I  do  a  very 
glorious  work  will  be  the-,  result. 

Cauldon   Place,   Shelton,    Staffordshire, 
Jany.  17,  1855. 

My  own  sweet  Catherine —  So  you  are  not  very  well,  or 
you  were  too  busy  going  to  this  tea  meeting,  or  you  had  some 
other  very  good  and  very  sufficient  and  very  satisfactory  excuse 
for  not  writing  to  your  own  dear  William  yesterday.  Well,  a 
note  will  come  to-morrow  and  be  very  welcome. 

The  congregation  was  very  glorious  last  night  and,  although 
I  did  not  preach  with  my  usual  pleasure,  and  as  I  thought 
power,  a  good  influence  pervaded  the  meeting  and  we  finished 
up  with  the  best  prayer  meeting  we  have  yet  had  and  swelled 
the  numbers  up  to  about  no  on  the  three  nights.  Mr.  Lyn  and 
his  father  were  with  us ;  were  much  pleased  and  worked  very 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  219 

hard.  We  had  about  the  average  Sunday  night  congregation 
and  if  the  weather  clears  up  we  shall  have  more  to-night,  but 
it  is  now  snowing  very  fast.  I  am  still,  through  the  boundless 
mercy  of  God,  very  well  in  health,  better  than  I  have  been  for 
some  time. 

I  send  you,  my  dear  Kate,  a  despatch  pretty  often  because 
I  know  you  are  interested  in  the  campaign.  This  is  certainly 
a  great  work  and  of  sufficient  importance  to  stop  the  mouth  of 
all  gainsayers.  Praise  God,  the  preachers  work  gloriously,  the 
President  is  a  sweet  man  and  is  very  much  pleased.  Mr. 
Ridgeway  works  hard  and  comes  leading  them  up,  broken- 
hearted, in  a  way  sufficient  to  melt  a  heart  of  stone.  A  re- 
spectable woman  met  me  this  morning  in  deep  distress ;  she 
was  coming  to  see  me ;  she  could  not  rest ;  we  went  home  with 
her;  Mr.  Lyn,  junior,  and  Mr.  Gutteridge  were  with  me; 
prayed  with  her,  etc.  and  she  found  peace  directly.  Praise 
God  for  ever  and  ever.  I  am  happy,  very  happy.  My  heart 
is  right,  I  trust,  with  respect  to  tracing  all  the  power  back  to 
God.  I  want  to  give  Him  all  the  praise.  Bless  you,  I  hope 
you  are  well  and  happy.  Write  me  all  about  your  soul  and 
feelings  towards  me.  I  love  you  and  I  trust  we  shall  be  very 
happy  together. 

Cauldon  Hall, 
Jan.  18,  1855. 

My  dearest  Catherine — I  must  have  returned  the  charge 
you  so  often  prefer  against  me,  that  of  not  having  answered  my 
two  or  three  letters,  only  that  you  make  so  good  and  so  satis- 
factory an  excuse.  I  mean  you  did  not  notice  in  yours  all  the 
contents  of  mine.  However,  I  thank  you  for  all  that  you  say, 
so  kind  and  so  loving.  I  am  sorry  you  were  not  satisfied  with 
the  tea  meeting  or  with  the  friends ;  /  would  not  go  again,  were 
I  you,  under  any  circumstances,  at  least  not  except  /  am  there. 
I  am  glad  you  have  Miss  Bates  with  you.  I  am  surprised  you 
should  spend  a  morning  at  Mrs.  Love's  doing  so  much  like  the 
man  who  locked  up,  with  a  patent  lock  that  nobody  could  pick, 
his  money  in  a  small  cash  box,  and  the  thieves  carried  box  and 
money  together  away.  You  have  wrapped  up  my  papers  and 
put  them  in  the  bottom  cupboard  where  any  one  can  open  them, 
etc.  But  I  will  write  to  Mrs.  Love  and  ask  her  to  put  them  in 
my  box  under  my  bed  and  there  they  will  be  safe  from  the  eye 
of  Bro.  D.  if  he  should  wish  to  pry.  I  do  not  know  him  at  all 
and  therefore  T  am  anxious  to  be  right.  Bless  you,  you  did 
what  you  thought  best,  and  that  will  always  satisfy  me.  I  re- 
ceive twice  or  thrice  per  week  long  and  kind  letters  from  Mr. 
Bates.  T  hope  you  will  have  done  with  that  shield  soon;  ^ 
surely  you  have  worn  it  long  enough ;  I  shall  make  no  pledges 

1  An  instrument  for  helping  a  weak  spine. 


220  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  residence  to  any  one  I  do  not  know  where  or  what  my 
future  path  will  be  except  that  it  will  be  that  of  an  Evangelist. 
I  count  my  improved  health  and  my  strengthened  chest  as  in- 
dication added  to  many  others  that  this  is  my  path. 

I  am  washing  my  chest  or  rather  bathing  it  with  salt  and 
cold  water  every  morning  altho'  the  ground  is  covered  with 
snow. 

But  now  to  my  Despatch.  Last  night  the  congregation  was 
very  good  altho'  the  night  was  unfavourable  —  near  2,000  I 
suppose  were  present,  not  quite  perhaps  —  but  it  was  a  large 
congregation.  The  word  was  with  power  and  point.  Lot's 
wife.  A  good  prayer  meeting  until  half  past  10  or  later  — 
and  40  names  taken  down,  making  near  160  during  this  week. 
For  all  this  we  cannot  be  sufficiently  thankful.  The  cases 
were  of  a  higher  order  last  night.  Many  very  fine  young  men 
and  many  very  respectable  females.  One  old  and  fine  leader 
told  me  that  his  son  and  daughter  had  found  the  Lord  for 
whom  he  had  been  praying  many  many  years.  Another  grey- 
headed man  said  his  daughter  and  daughter-in-law  had  found 
the  Lord  for  whom  he  had  been  praying  near  28  years.  Let 
us  give  God  all  the  praise.  I  trust  that  amid  all  this  I  am 
kept  right.  I  feel  much  for  other  ministers  while  they  are 
cordial,  but  if  they  speak  against  the  work  or  against  its  re- 
sults, then  I  feel  something  very  near  akin  to  anger  rise  within 
my  poor  deceptive  heart.  May  God  in  mercy  keep  me  right. 
Pray  for  me,  my  darling,  and  I  will  if  spared  do  all  I  can  to 
make  thee  as  happy  as  God  wills.  I  trust  I  shall  have  some 
better  news  to  tell  you  with  respect  to  my  mother's  property ; 
I  have  got  another  gleam  of  hope.  Farewell.  I  pray  for  you 
—  and  often,  nay  always,  at  night  resign  myself  after  the 
toils  and  anxieties  of  the  day  to  thoughts  about  your  own 
sweet  self. 

Cauldon  Hall,  Shelton, 
Monday,  January  22,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Catherine,  ...  I  should 
have  written  on  Saturday,  but  going  to  Longton  in  the  morning 
I  had  but  time  for  two  other  letters  which  ought  to  have  been 
posted  before.  My  engagements  are  now  settled  for  the  next 
5  weeks  so  that  you  may  know  when  to  expect  me  and  I  can 
know  when  to  expect  to  see  you.  I  finish  here  at  Hanley  on 
Wednesday  of  this  week.  Thursday,  Friday,  and  Saturday  I 
go  home  to  Nottingham.  On  Sunday  and  the  week  following  I 
preach  at  Burslem,  the  following  week  at  Newcastle  on  Trent,  a 
place  about  2  or  3  miles  from  here  —  on  the  following  week 
I  am  at  Longton  again,  and  the  following  fortnight  I  am  at 
Mossley,  a  large  place  beyond  Manchester  —  from  thence  I 
come  to  London  —  when  after  resting  awhile  and  taking  part 
in  the  opening  of  the  New  Chapel  I  go  (by  leave  of  my  London 


\ 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  221 

friends)  to  Tipton  in  the  Dudley  East  Circuit,  then  on  to 
Gateshead  and  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  then  to  Bradford  in  York- 
shire, and  then  home  again  by  Conference  to  you. 

Yesterday  was  a  remarkable  day.  In  the  morning  the  con- 
gregation was  very  good,  at  night  that  large  chapel  was 
crowded ;  it  was  an  imposing  sight.  I  suppose  there  were 
3,000  persons  present,  some  from  a  distance,  some  Independent 
Wesleyans,  Church  people,  Primitives,  many  infidels  and  in- 
differents.  God  helped  me  to  preach  with  a  little  power  and  in 
the  prayer  meeting  we  took  down  50  names,  many  good  cases. 
I  should  much  have  liked  you  to  have  been  there.  Altho'  I 
exerted  myself  very  much  and  stayed  at  the  prayer  meeting  for 
some  time  I  am  very  well  to-day ;  my  chest  is  a  little  sore,  but 
nothing  in  comparison  with  what  it  was  sometimes  in  London. 
For  this  I  cannot  be  sufficiently  thankful. 

I  am  anxious  to  see  you,  I  want  to  talk  many  things  over. 
Especially  about  money  matters  —  I  feel  how  possible  it  is  to 
be  led  wrong,  already  Satan  harasses  me  much  on  the  subject, 
and  it  must  not  be.  I  must  preserve  my  disinterestedness  and 
put  my  confidence  in  God. 

Cauldon  Place, 
Jany.  23,  1855. 

My  dearest  Love,  ...  I  am  sorry  for  your  mother's  sake 
that  Mrs.  Harthorne  is  going  away,  but  perhaps  some  one  else 
may  come.  Do  not  doubt  the  good  providence  of  God.  Bless 
you  I  trust  that  your  anxieties  on  this  subject  will  end  and  that 
you  will  in  all  other  things  likewise  be  happy.  I  do  not  think 
it  wise  or  well  to  anticipate  any  perfect  state  of  bliss  on  earth. 
This  is  at  best  a  changing  and  unsatisfactory  world.  And  our 
wisest  and  happiest  course  is  to  lay  up  treasure  in  Heaven. 

The  work  continues ;  last  night  the  congregation  was  very 
large  and  I  preached  with  some  liberty  and  power  and  after- 
wards a  number  of  very  clear  and  satisfactory  conversions 
took  place.  Near  140  names  were  taken.  I  am  somewhat 
tired  and  fatigued  this  morning,  but  a  good  walk  will  set  me 
up  again. 

Give  my  kind  love  to  your  dear  mother.  The  newspapers 
and  preachers  continue  to  say  very  flattering  things  concerning 
my  ability.  Mr.  Donald,  a  very  much  respected  preacher  in 
our  donomination,  came  over  last  week  from  Mossley,  first  to 
hear  me  and  then  if  he  approved  to  invite  me  there;  he  told 
Mr.  McAndy  that  I  have  a  stronger  mind  than  Mr.  Caughey; 
but  of  course  he  was  thoroughly  mistaken.  I  am  satisfied 
that  I  have  a  far  lower  estimate  of  my  ability  than  those 
around  me. 

Farewell.  Write  me  again  at  your  leisure.  I  must  say  I 
like  the  "  you  "  and  "  your  "  on  paper  better  than  "  thee  "  and 
**  thou  "  and  "  thine."     I  think  your  writing  improves. 


222  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Six  days  after  having  expressed  his  disapproval  of 
"  thou  "  and  "  thee,"  WilHam  Booth  writes  the  following 
impulsive  letter  to  Catherine  Mumford,  a  letter  as  valuable 
and  significant  perhaps  as  any  in  the  series : 

Waterloo  Road,  Burslem, 
Jany.  2gth,  '55. 

My  dearest,  my  own  precious  Love  —  What  a  time  it 
seems  since  I  heard  from  thcc.  What  a  time  since  I  wrote 
to  thee  —  and  thou  shalt  have  the  first  fruits  of  my  pen  and  I 
send  thee  the  offering  of  a  loving  heart,  a  heart  that  never 
loved  thee  as  it  loves  thee  now.  Thou  art  precious  to  my  in- 
most soul  and  I  will  not  only  enshrine  thee  there  but  guard 
and  watch  over  and  protect  thy  image  from  harm  or  injury. 
I  have  this  last  day  or  two  unceasingly  carried  thee  with  me, 
in  my  inmost  thoughts  and  even  when  surrounded  by  crowds 
and  listening  to  the  voices  of  hundreds,  I  have  seemed  only  to 
live  for  God  and  thee.  Heaven  grant  that  this  sweet  dream, 
nay,  reality  of  love  and  fond  affection,  may  be  perpetuated 
for  ever.  Oh  to  see  thee  and  press  thy  hand  and  clasp  thee 
to  my  heart ;  and  this  shall  soon  be  —  till  then,  God  protect  and 
care  for  thy  welfare. 

Other  things  continue  bright  and  cheerful.  I  left  my 
mother  better  in  health  and  more  comfortable  and  happy  in 
mind.  Mary  and  Emma  are  likewise  better.  I  arrived  here 
in  Burslem  about  9  o'clock  on  Saturday,  after  a  very  cold  and 
wearisome  journey.  I  found  a  hearty  welcome  from  the 
friends  where  I  am  now  staying  and  they  do  all  they  can  to 
make  me  happy.  It  is  a  very  nice  town,  containing  about  1,500 
inhabitants.  The  chapel  is  a  very  unique  and  comfortable  one, 
rather  small,  will  hold  about  800  persons.  I  never  preached 
to  a  congregation  so  packed  in  my  life  as  it  was  last  night, 
and  I  suppose  hundreds  went  away  unable  to  obtain  admission ; 
all  up  the  pulpit  stairs,  in  the  aisles,  in  the  communion  rails, 
in  fact  wherever  there  was  standing  room.  I  preached  with 
a  little  liberty  and  some  power  and  about  40  names  were  taken 
down  during  the  progress  of  the  prayer  meeting.  The  Love 
Feast  in  the  afternoon  was  a  very  interesting  one  on  the 
whole ;  it  was  the  best  beginning  I  have  as  yet  been  privileged 
to  have.  I  suppose  I  am  to  travel  until  Conference,  if  my 
Circuit  will  agree  to  accept  of  a  supply.  I  come  to  London 
all  well  on  the  4th  of  March  and  stay  3  weeks.  I  hope  they 
will  be  the  happiest  three  weeks  in  my  life  so  far.  Why  not? 
we  belong  to  God.  Jesus  is  our  Saviour,  His  Blood  is  our 
Salvation,  and  we  belong  to  eacJi  other  —  as  fully  as  we  can 
do,  until  the  last  link  has  been  put  to  our  union.  Have  we  not 
perfectly  each   other's  love?     Oh   bless   you,   my   darling,   on 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  223 

my  bosom  your  head  shall  rest  —  yes  rest.  I  reciprocate  all 
your  fond  expressions  and  I  assure  you  that  you  are  in  my 
heart. 

Did  you  receive  all  my  letters  last  week?  Did  you  receive 
one  w^ith  some  postage  stamps  enclosed?  Direct  to  me  at 
Mr.  Hawley's,  Waterloo  Road,  Burslem,  Staffordshire.  Oh 
my  dearest,  let  us  trust  in  God.  I  hope  to  do  something  for 
this  poor  perishing  world,  and"  I  do  want  you  to  give  me 
yuur  full  heart's  sympathy  to  aid  me  to  realize  the  big  desires 
that  have  existence  in  my  breast.  "  You  will."  You  say, 
"  I  will,"  even  as  you  read,  and  you  shall  be  mine,  mine  fully. 
I  will  love  you  as  few  are  loved  and  watch  over  you  as  few  are 
watched  over,  and  we  will  live  for  each  other  and  every  sinew 
and  every  nerve  shall  be  strained  to  save  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  of  perishing  souls.  Amid  crowds  and  toils  and 
anxieties  and  excitements  I  will  carry  you  in  my  arms,  nay, 
enshrined  in  my  soul,  and  when  we  meet  I  will  look  the  love  I 
cannot  speak.  Farewell ;  never  more  fondly  did  I  press  an 
epistle  to  my  lips  before  posting  than  I  do  this,  because  I  know 
it  will  meet  thy  gaze.  God  bless  you  —  remember  me  as  your 
own  —  and  love  me  as  you  were  wont  to  do  in  days  gone  by. 

PS. —  The  editor  of  one  of  our  local  papers  has  announced 
that  a  sketch  of  one  of  my  sermons  and  an  article  on  the 
services  will  appear  in  next  week's  issue.  What  thinkest  thou 
of  that,  my  love?  I  was  told  that  he  was  there  two  nights. 
It  matters  not.  I  hope  God  will  help  me  to  stand  the  storm 
when  it  comes  and  I  trust  He  will  keep  me  right  amid  His 
sunshine. 

Wilt  thou  pray  for  me?  Dr.  Crofts  speaks  kindly  of  my 
essay. 

Waterloo  Road,  Burslem, 
Jany.  30,  '55. 

My  own  sweet  and  precious  Treasure,  ...  I  have  been 
talking  to  you.  breathing  your  name,  musing  on  your  love  to 
me  and  your  kindness,  and  thinking  how  much  I  should  love  to 
see  you  and  to  press  you  to  my  fond  and  anxious  heart.  Oh 
Catherine,  I  do  love  thee.  Thou  art  indeed  my  treasure,  the 
hope  and  the  stay  of  my  soul.  I  mean  so  far  as  earthly  things 
should  be  dear.  I  do  not  love  thee  more.  No,  I  may  love 
thee  very  much  before  I  love  thee  more  than  is  consistent  with 
my  love  to  Him  who  is  my  Redeemer  and  my  God.  Him  first, 
thou  next.  Bless  thee  we  are  one,  and  He  shall  be  our  all  in 
all.  Didst  thou  get  my  letter  of  yesterday?  Didst  thou  read 
it  over  and  reciprocate  every  fond  expression?  Art  thou 
not  mine,  and  am  I  not  thine?  ]\^s!  Yes!  The  darkness 
has  passed  and  the  day  of  unclouded  affection  has  dawned, 
and  we  have  zvoke  up  to  the  deep  joy  of  loving  and  of  being 
loved. 


224  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

My  health  is  very  good.  I  am  strong.  I  was  much  more 
tired  with  going  home  than  had  I  stayed  here  and  preached. 
My  Mother  is  well ;  there  is  no  news  about  the  property.  I 
will  take  the  globules  for  thy  dear  sake.  My  chest  is  re- 
markably well  and  I  believe  you  will  be  surprised  at  the  im- 
provement. My  leaving  London  again  is  to  be  laid  before  the 
Circuit  and  I  shall  do  as  they  wish.  You  talk  about  my  pop- 
ularity; dearest,  believe  me,  I  care  about  pleasing  God  and 
thee  and  saving  sinners.  In  seeking  the  salvation  of  souls 
popularity  has  come.  It  will  not  alter  my  future  course ;  not 
an  atom.  I  mean  to  do  right  and  to  do  my  duty,  all  my  duty. 
What  I  alluded  to  about  money  I  will  say  when  we  meet;  it 
is  not  worth  while  to  waste  time  to  put  it  on  paper.  Don't 
talk  about  my  forgiving  you ;  send  me  word  that  you  fully 
and  freely  and  for  ever  forgive  me  all  the  past,  and  that  in  the 
future  we  shall  be  first  each  other's  and  then  fully  the  Lord's. 
Farezvell,  my  own  sweet  love  —  Bless  you ;  pray  for  me. 
You  are  lonely  without  me,  and  I  am  lonely  without  thee. 
Oh  how  I  wanted  thee  last  night  to  go  home  to.  No  one 
else  can  understand  me.  No  one  else  can  sympathize  with  me ; 
thy  bosom  is  my  earthly  heaven,  next  to  the  joy  of  my  work 
and  my  Heavenly  Master.  Thou  art  my  joy.  and  thy  soul 
is  my  paradise.  Farewell.  The  3rd  of  March  will  soon  be 
here. 

P.S. —  I  kiss  this  letter  many  times. 

Thou  shalt  have  another  pen  when  I  come  up. 

In  the  following  letter  one  obtains  not  only  a  description 
of  religious  excitement  by  William  Booth,  but  the  inter- 
esting and  striking  confession  of  a  revivalist's  misgiving  in 
the  midst  of  a  meeting: 

BuRSLEY,  Feby.  i,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  I  just  scribble  you 
a  line.  How  can  I  help  doing  so?  I  want  to  tell  you  a  few 
thoughts  of  which  my  heart  is  full.  I  said  little  or  nothing 
yesterday  as  to  the  work  here,  and  I  want  to  tell  you  what 
passed  through  my  mind  respecting  it  last  night. 

Monday  evening  was  a  very  heavy  and  painful  one.  We  had 
two  meetings  after  the  sermon,  one  in  the  chapel  and  one  in 
the  school  room.  We  took  down  25  names,  altho'  it  was  one 
of  the  most  confused  meetings  I  ever  was  in.  Tuesday  and 
Wednesday  evenings  were  the  most  triumphant  I  ever  wit- 
nessed, under  any  circumstances.  We  confined  the  meeting 
to  the  chapel.  Last  night  twice  or  thrice  I  became  alarmed, 
the  excitement  was  almost  overwhelming ;  I  feared  for  the 
people.  I  feared  lest  we  should  not  be  able  to  keep  the 
reins  of  the  meeting.  The  cries  of  distress  were  thrilling, 
piercing,  running,  as  one  gentleman  expressed  it,  through  you 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  225 

to  your  finger  ends.  Some  were  violent,  commenced  shrieking, 
clapping  the  forms,  etc. ;  these  I  stopped  directly ;  in  fact  all 
the  more  violent  I  stopped  as  soon  as  I  could.  If  I  doubted, 
as  in  two  instances,  sincerity,  I  stopped  them  authoritatively ; 
if  I  had  confidence  in  them  I  poured  on  the  balm  of  Jesus' 
salvation  and  the  sweet  promises  of  His  Word,  and  they  soon 
turned  their  tears  and  wailings  into  joy. 

Amid  all  this  I  could  not  help  but  reason,  Is  it  right?  Is 
this  the  best  way?  Perhaps  I  was  severely  tempted  to  believe 
it  all  a  delusion  ?  Perhaps  it  was  my  own  unbelief,  but  it  was 
strange  that  these  thoughts  should  be  passing  in  my  breast 
while  I  stood  upon  the  form,  the  calmest  and  at  times  the 
most  unmoved  in  all  that  dense  assembly,  directing  and  con- 
trolling every  movement  of  the  meeting  so  far  as  such  a  num- 
ber of  excited  beings  could  be  controlled  and  guided. 

The  people  are  more  ignorant  here  than  in  other  places  I 
have  visited,  many  who  come  are  backsliders,  and  they  wring 
their  hands,  and  strike  their  breasts,  and  beat  the  communion 
rail  enough  to  melt  and  break  hearts  of  stone. 

To-night  we  shall  have  a  crasli  and  no  mistake.  The  place 
is  literally  packed,  sitting  and  standing  every  night. 

And  how  art  thou,  my  love,  my  sweet  one,  my  hope? 
When  I  enter  my  chamber,  oh  how  it  seems  to  bring  me  into 
communion  with  thy  spirit.  Solitude  and  silence  has  this 
eflfect.  And  thou  dost  think  about  me.  Bless  thee,  I  am  thine 
and  thou  art  mine,  and  we  are  one.  Farewell.  My  heart 
yearns  for  thy  sweet  companionship ;  to  have  thee  to  love 
and  to  talk  to  and  to  sympathize  with.  I  want  more  of  the 
love  of  Heaven  and  more  of  the  love  of  earth,  thv  lore,  love 
to  thee. 

My  health  is  wonderfully  good  considering  my  continued 
exertion  and  the  protracted  excitement,  and  I  am  going  to- 
morrow to  the  home  of  a  very  nice  gentleman  where  I  shall 
rest  tzi'o  days  —  and  get  strong  again  to  labour.  I  am  much 
better  than  when  in  London  —  in  health.  I  do  hope  that  I 
shall  be  able  to  surprise  you  with  my  health.  Take  care  of 
thyself  my  precious  for  my  sake. 

Give  my  love  to  mother.  Get  me  two  good  shirts  and  two 
night  shirts,  i  yard  and  j4  long  at  least,  ready  to  send  next 
week  when  I  send  you  word.  Farewell.  Heaven  bless  and 
care  for  thee. 

P.S. —  I  intended  to  post  this  letter  yesterday  —  I  reached 
the  post  office  —  and  then  found  that  it  was  not  sealed,  in- 
tended doing  it  with  wafer  at  Mr.  Ridgeway's.  forgot  it. 
made  sure  I  had  posted  it  until  I  found  it  in  my  pocket  to-day. 
Bless  you,  I  am  very  sorry,  but  post  it  now.  I  will  write  vou, 
all  well,  to-morrow.  We  had  a  triumphant  night  last  night. 
Good-bye. 


226  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Clayton,  Newcastle,  Staffordshire, 
Feby.  5,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  — ...  I  am  sorry 
that  things  are  not  so  sunny  with  your  Mamma  as  one  could 
wish,  but  we  must  hope  for  better  and  brighter  days.  I  do 
not  know  how  my  mother  and  sister  would  have  lived  had  I 
not  stepped  in  just  as  I  did;  for  Mary  has  been  unable  to  get 
any  work  for  a  long  time.  I  left  them  £5:0  :  o,  and  I  am 
reduced  to  about  15/-  only  that  I  expect  something  —  a  little, 
from  Burslem.  I  want  a  coat  when  I  can  raise  the  money. 
But  enough,  I  did  not  intend  writing  this  rubbish. 

Your  letters  are  not  quite  so  long  as  they  used  to  be,  but 
you  are  busy.  I  am  sure  I  am  very  much  delighted  to  hear  of 
your  industry,  your  improved  health,  and  that  you  have 
adopted  the  cold  water  plan.  I  have  very  great  faith  in  it.  I 
have  what  they  call  a  medical  rubber.  A  towel  made  on  pur- 
pose. Almost  as  rough  as  though  made  of  horsehair.  I  came 
from  Nottingham  with  a  dreadful  pain  at  the  bottom  of  my 
back  —  was  very  bad  for  two  days  —  I  bathed  it  once,  with  cold 
water  and  salt,  and  rubbed  it,  and  I  never  felt  it  again.  I  am 
not  so  well  to-day.  My  chest  is  sore  with  yesterday's  exer- 
tions.    I  intend  being  more  careful  to-night. 

Yesterday  was  more  successful  than  ever  as  a  beginning. 
Altho'  it  rained  in  torrents,  the  chapel  was  crowded,  many 
went  away  unable  to  obtain  admission.  We  registered  during 
the  prayer  meeting  40  names.  What  think  you  of  the  news- 
paper report?  We  often  laugh  about  his  likening  me  to  a 
Jezv. 

.  .  .  Pray  for  me,  my  darling  —  that  I  may  be  labouring 
for  Him.  For  His  glory  —  conscientiously  trying  to  do  His 
will  —  help  me  to  do  as  much  as  I  can  —  be  my  guardian 
angel  —  watch  over  me  and  prompt  to  benevolent  effort  for 
the  good  of  others. 

Newcastle,  Staffordshire, 
Feby.  8,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  Your  very  kind 
and  thoughtful  letter  is  to  hand  this  morning.  It  really  is  a 
credit  to  both  your  head  and  your  heart.  I  did  not  write 
yesterday  or  the  day  preceding  because  of  circumstances  and 
am  sorry  for  it.  I  fully  intended  yesterday  but  was  awkwardly 
and  unexpectedly  kept  away  from  home  and  was  very  low  and 
desponding  all  the  day.  I  am  better  mentally  and  physically 
to-day.  I  intend,  all  well,  resting  an  entire  week  in  London. 
I  commence  the  revival  services  at  the  new  place  on  the 
second  Sunday.  I  thank  you  for  your  remarks  on  the 
strictures  contained  in  the  newspapers ;  they  are  very  judicious. 
I  do  hear  from  time  to  time  of  political  affairs.  /  think  my 
duty  is  to  leave  London  after  a  three  or  four  weeks'  stay  there. 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  227 

The  people  are  pulling  me  almost  to  pieces  down  here.  I  have 
letters  from  Leeds,  Dewsbury,  and  Bristol  the  last  two  days. 
A  meeting  is  held  to-day  in  London  to  decide  whether  Mr. 
Downs  is  to  be  accepted  as  a  supply  for  me  till  Conference  or 
whether  I  shall  be  retained  after  my  return ;  to  the  decision  of 
that  meeting  I  shall  calmly  submit.  You  shall  not  on  any 
consideration  be  parted  from  me  when  your  own  heart  dictates 
the  path  of  duty  to  be  with  me.  I  have  confidence  in  thy 
judgment  and  in  thy  love  for  the  great  work  of  saving  souls. 
I  have  no  fear,  neither  has  Mr.  Mills  on  this  subject.  And 
when  thou  art,  should  God  see  it  best  to  bless  us  with  offspring, 
when  thou  art  thus  detained  thou  shalt  have  a  little  paradise 
in  some  central  spot  and  my  mother  shall  live  with  us,  should 
God  spare  us  and  spare  her  and  Emma.  And  then  our 
winter  income  will  procure  us  all  the  blessings  that  we  need. 
Fear  not  this  residence :  thou  canst  make  excursions  with  me, 
and  thou  wilt  have  confidence  in  those  thou  leavest  for  a 
season  in  charge  of  our  loved  ones  and  our  home  for  a  season. 
Should  we  have  no  children,  we  will  travel  together.  I  never 
think  of  anything  else  in  my  joy,  and  thou  shalt  be  my  guardian 
angel. 

I  am  doing  nothing  mentally.  I  intend  doing  something  by 
and  by.  I  improve  my  sermons  as  I  preach  them.  My 
health  is  better,  my  chest  stronger.  I  drink  a  deal  of  Linseed 
Tea.  Didst  thou  ever  try  it?  Do  not  fear  about  being 
separated.  If  you  can  go  /  shall  not  go  without  you.  Be- 
sides, where  I  have  been  once  many  homes  at  once  ofifer  for  a 
second  visit.  Here  I  am  overwhelmed  with  kindness.  The 
work  progresses  very  favourably.  Chapels  crowded  every 
night  —  riveted  attention  perhaps  for  an  hour  and  a  quarter's 
sermon  and  then  mighty  prayer  meetings  such  as  you  never 
saw.     Last  night  67  names  were  taken. 

I  adhere  to  the  cold  water  bathing  of  my  chest  and  shoulders 
and  back.  I  do  not  retire  much  before  12  on  an  average  — 
sleep  well,  rise  about  ^  past  8,  breakfast  and  walk  till 
dinner  —  afterwards  do  my  correspondence,  read  a  little  and 
prepare  for  night,  leaving  the  prayer  meeting  about  10  —  last 
night  they  did  not  leave  the  chapel  until  34  to  12.  I  have 
not  seen  Kossuth's  speeches.  I  was  so  glad  to  hear  about 
your  improved  health,  you  cannot  think  how  overjoyed  I  am 
at  the  prospect  of  your  being  well. 

We  will  talk  more  and  arrive  at  some  definite  opinions 
and  rules  for  the  government  of  our  future  lives  with  respect 
to  money:  the  controversy  becomes  an  unpleasant  and  un- 
profitable one  to  me.  I  have  no  fear  of  getting  sufficient  for 
existing  wants;  it  will  be  with  respect  to  laying  up  for  the 
future. 

And  now  my  dearest.  I  thank  you   from  my  inmost  heart 


228  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

for  all  your  kind  words  and  love.  Do  not  say  I  have  not  tried 
to  answer  your  letters.  I  do  try.  I  will  try  more  in  the 
future.  You  must  make  some  little  allowance  for  my  cir- 
cumstances. Give  my  best  love  to  your  dear  mamma.  Take 
great  care  of  your  health.  I  will  make  the  night  shirts  do. 
I  shall  try  to  manage  now  until  I  come  to  town  if  I  can.  If 
I  want  them  I  will  write  again.  Have  you  two  shirts?  I 
want  them  worse;  mine  are  all  in  tatters. 

Bless  you,  farewell.  Look  forward  to  the  future  with  a 
trusting  and  hopeful  soul. 

Clayton,  Newcastle, 
Feby.  9,  1855. 

My  dearest  Catherine  —  How  art  thou  getting  on  and 
what  art  thou  doing?  I  sit  here  nearly  alone  and  I  hail  the 
solitude  with  delight,  in  a  snug,  warm,  and  handsomely 
furnished  room  —  with  every  earthly  comfort  and  all  I  desire 
but  thee;  how  I  should  love  to  have  thee  to  help  me  to  enjoy 
a  quiet  evening;  but  it  must  not  be  and  I  must  quietly  resign 
myself  to  my  lot;  if  spared  we  shall  soon  pass  some  happy, 
happy,  happy  hours  together.  By  God's  help  I  will  calmly 
wait,  and  with  His  blessing  I  will  enjoy  the  present  and  not 
be  always  living  only  for  the  future.  There  is  much  in  the 
present ;  I  have  a  great  deal  in  my  work  that  others  would 
give  worlds  for ;  I  have  many  kind  friends ;  I  have  every 
earthly  luxury  ^  and  attention,  and  then  I  have  thee,  and  a  hope, 
a  real  and  certain  hope,  of  Heaven. 

LoNGTON,  Feby.  12,  1855. 

My  very  dear  Love  —  What  art  thou  doing,  I  wonder 
just  now?  Perhaps  thinking  about  me.  I  do  hope  my  two 
last  letters  have  come  to  hand,  and  I  do  trust  that  thou  art 
very  happy.  How  is  it  with  thee  in  spiritual  matters?  I  do 
hope  better  and  brighter.  I  awoke  very  happy  this  morning. 
I  am  truly  a  child  of  many  mercies;  how  good  God  is  to  me! 
Oh,  my  dearest,  help  me  to  praise  Him. 

Yesterday  was  a  day  of  great  anxiety.  I  knew  expectation 
was  very  high  and  I  had  comparatively  new  and  untried  ser- 
mons to  preach.  At  night  the  chapel  was  densely  crowded, 
packed,  I  suppose  2,200  persons  were  present  —  the  gallery 
is  an  immense  one  and  the  people  seem  right  upon  you.  I 
was  very  much  impressed  with  a  sense  of  my  weakness  and 
insignificance  to  accomplish  any  thing  good  except  divinely 
assisted,  and  God  did  graciously  help  me  to  preach  a  little 
from  "Why  will  ye  die?" 

We  had  a  tolerably  good  prayer  meeting;  38  professed  to 
find  peace  —  some  good  cases,  a  sad  lack  of  efficient  help.     The 

1  It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  this  man,  with  "  every  earthly 
luxury,"  has  just  confessed  that  his  shirts  are  in  tatters. 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  229 

congregation  was  very  respectable  and  intelligent,  some  of  the 
leading  secularists  were  present,  and  seemed  very  attentive 
and  solemn,  and  I  hope  God  will  impress  the  truth  upon  their 
minds.  I  shall  have  to  preach  new  sermons  the  next  two  or 
three  nights,  and  therefore   anticipate   much  anxiety. 

The  friends  at  Newcastle  were  very  kind  and  expressed  an 
earnest  wish  to  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  the  next  time 
I  visit  them.  I  have  some  thought  of  selecting  Newcastle  as  a 
place  of  residence.  It  is  central  —  a  nice  little  town ;  in  it 
are  many  intelligent  warm-hearted  and  loving  friends ;  the 
scenery  around  it  is  of  a  romantic  and  pleasing  character ;  our 
cause  is  the  leading  dissenting  interest  in  the  place,  and  alto- 
gether I  was  pleased  with  it,  and  I  have  seen  a  nice  little  house 
that  I  think  would  suit  us  well.  Mr.  Dixon  the  gentleman 
with  whom  I  stayed,  made  me  a  present  of  £2  for  my  mother. 
That  was  very  kind,  was  it  not?  They  gave  me  £3  for  my 
week's  services  —  and  every  luxury  that  heart  could  desire 
besides  to  promote  my  health  and  comfort. 

A  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Bailey  who  keeps  his  carriage 
and  pair,  and  who  lives  in  a  little  paradise  about  two  miles 
out  of  Longton,  would  very  much  like  us  to  spend  a  month  to 
rest  at  his  house  next  summer ;  but  I  mean  to  visit  Paris, 
Switzerland,  and  the  Rhine,  if  at  all  practicable  —  but  we  shall 
see. 

My  present  popularity  almost  frightens  me.  I  am  alarmed 
as  to  the  maintaining  of  it.  You  understand  me,  I  mean  the 
carrying  out  of  the  work  of  God.  My  sermon  yesterday 
morning  was  a  perfect  failure.  But  God  can,  and  I  firmly 
believe,  God  will  work.  And  now  my  love,  I  shall  if  spared 
soon  see  you  and  again  we  can  sit  and  talk  about  everything. 

Oldham,  Feby.  21,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Catherine — Bless  you, 
how  I  do  wish  for  an  interview  —  to  see  and  love  you.  I  am 
very  low  in  spirits  —  very;  the  work  does  not  progress  to  my 
satisfaction,  the  congregations  are  not  very  good  and  the  cases 
not  of  a  very  encouraging  character.  My  heart  yearns  for 
something  more  glorious  and  effective ;  here  I  am  surrounded 
by  a  dense  population  of  I  should  think  80,000  people,  and  yet 
our  congregation  last  night  was  only  about  300 ;  but  that  is 
better  than  preaching  to  20  or  30,  the  average  week  night  con- 
gregation here. 

Pray  for  me,  my  dearest  Love ;  oh  to  live  nearer  to  God ! 

I  am  rapidly  making  the  acquaintance  of  the  preachers  of 
the  Connexion.  Many  of  them  come  to  hear  me  at  different 
times  and  places ;  I  am  afraid  I  am  not  making  that  impression 
with  respect  to  my  piety  that  I  ought  to  do.  Oh  to  live  close 
to  God!     My  soul  pants  for  something  deeper,  realler,  more 


230  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

hallowed,  in  my  soul's  experience.  If  I  fail  it  will  be  here. 
My  dear,  my  own  dear,  write  to  me,  all  about  your  heart,  all 
about  your  health ;  tell  me  you  love  me  with  satisfaction,  that 
is  if  it  be  so.  Oh  for  an  uninterrupted  future  of  harmony 
and  confidence  —  when  it  will  be  one  of  bliss  and  peace.  I 
will  try  and  serve  God  better,  I  want  Him  more  in  my  heart 
motives,  in  my  soul's  thinking  and  desires.  To  look  at  men 
and  things  and  duties  from  a  place  close  to  His  throne.  The 
Lord  help  me.  Let  us  live  for  each  other  individually  and  to- 
gether as  one ;  let  us  labour  and  toil  for  Him. 

MOSSLEY, 

Monday,  Fcby.  26,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  precious  Catherine  —  I  suppose  that 
the  storm  must  have  had  some  influence  on  the  delay  that  has 
occurred  in  the  delivery  of  the  letters.  Your  two  last  announc- 
ing your  painful  illness  were  not  put  into  my  hands  until 
yesterday  after  the  morning's  service.  My  last  ought  to  have 
reached  you  on  Saturday,  and  I  was  anxiously  expecting  an 
answer  before  I  wrote  again.  Oh,  had  I  but  known  I  would 
have  employed  Saturday  evening  in  writing  consolation  to  you 
so  far  as  I  could  have  done  so.  I  am  indeed  sorry  to  hear 
of  your  illness.  I  had  feared  it.  I  had  often  done  so. 
Something  has  often  whispered  that  I  was  counting  too  much 
on  my  visit  to  town ;  but  you  will  be  better  by  then,  I  trust. 
But  why  not  call  a  doctor  at  once?  I  have  not  much  faith  in 
them,  but  still  I  would  not  have  delayed  a  moment  —  especially 
when  you  were  so  ill.  It  must  have  been  very  sudden. 
Whatever  could  have  been  the  cause?  But  you  will  be  better, 
and  as  you  gain  strength  I  trust  you  will  be  less  the  subject 
of  these  painful  attacks.  Bless  you,  I  should  much  like  to  see 
you,  and  to  have  your  company.  I  doubt  not  you  feel  the 
same.  I  shall  (all  well)  be  with  you  soon,  and  then  I  will 
sit  by  your  side  and  we  will  talk  all  things  over.  If  you  have 
not  answered  my  last  letter  do  not  trouble  to  do  so.  Never 
fear  on  my  account,  anything.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  take 
care  of  yourself. 

This  attack  seems  very  mysterious  —  just  as  we  were 
cherishing  such  hopes  of  the  future  and  of  your  ability  to 
travel,  etc. —  this  comes  in  and  brings  food  to  me  for  more 
anxiety  respecting  the  future.  Well,  we  must  leave  it  with 
the  Lord  for  the  present. 

This  last  week  has  been  one  of  the  most  anxious,  nervous, 
and  desponding  weeks  I  ever  turned  over  in  my  life.  Yester- 
day was  a  very  heavy  day  —  very  few,  if  any,  understand 
me.  Congregations  here  were  ver}'  poor  yesterday,  the  cause 
is  dreadfully  low.     Only  eight  cases  at  night.     It  would  take 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  231 

me  a  month  to  raise  the  place.  If  you  were  with  me  I  think 
then  I  could  plod  on  for  a  month  or  six  weeks  and  more,  and 
move  the  town. 

I  was  very  unwell  yesterday  but  am  much  better  this  morn- 
ing. I  was  very  uncomfortable  in  my  house  last  week.  I  am 
just  as  much  the  contrary  this.  I  never  was  more  cared  for 
than  here;  if  ever  you  come  to  Mossley  I  have  no  doubt  that 
this  will  be  your  home,  and  you  will  find  every  luxury  and  com- 
fort that  heart  can  desire  and  I  shall  be  with  you,  and  I  am  sure 
altho'  I  distrust  myself  more  than  you  distrust  me,  yet  I  am 
sure  that  I  shall  be  anxious  to  make  you  as  happy  as  you  de- 
sire. To  tell  you  that  I  love  you  seems  cold ;  you  know  it, 
I  know  it, —  you  are  mine,  we  are  linked  together,  already 
united,  already  one.  Bless  you  a  thousand  times,  send  me  a 
line  to  tell  me  all  is  well  in  your  heart  towards  me  —  I 
prayed  for  you  last  night,  yes  I  pray  for  you  as  my  Catherine, 
as  my  ozvn  Kate.  And  every  cloud  will  pass  away  and  we 
shall  yet  be  helps  to  one  another  and  unitedly  a  blessing  to 
the  world.  Remember  me  kindly  to  your  mother  and  father. 
We  shall  soon  meet  —  that  is,  if  you  send  me  word  that  you 
repose  confidence  in  me  —  and  you  do,  I  believe  it,  your  last 
letters  tell  me  that  you  do.  We  shall  soon  meet  —  Oh  this 
uncertain  world,  how  oft  has  it  deceived  me !  I  suspect  it  at 
every  turn.  There  is  nothing  certain  but  uncertainty  and  let 
me  say  something  else,  thy  love  to  me.  Yes,  that  is  certain, 
unchanging.  Bless  you,  count  me  your  own  —  oh,  to  come 
and  see  thee,  and  that  is  so  near  at  hand,  and  thou  wilt  be  a 
little  better,  able  to  take  a  little  walk  in  the  sunshine. 

Cheer  up  —  look  not  beyond  to-day,  at  least  not  beyond 
our  meeting.  We  will  part  but  little  while  I  am  in  London. 
I  do  not  know  where  my  salary  is  to  come  from  while  in 
town.  But  never  mind,  I  shall  get  over  that.  Do  not  trouble 
to  write  much  —  only  one  line  to  tell  me  your  heart  is  right 
with  me.  I  will  write  you  every  day.  If  the  letters  don't 
come  to  hand  blame  the  post,  not  your  own  in  love's  closest 
and  most  tender  bonds. 

LoNGTON,  March  24,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  only  Love — I  am  safely  arrived  and 
most  comfortably  accommodated.  I  thought  much  about  thee 
during  my  journey,  and  if  you  were  here  I  should  have  noth- 
ing more  to  hope  for,  so  far  as  earth  is  concerned.  I  am  very 
anxious,  of  course,  about  the  services;  how  can  I  be  other- 
wise when  so  much  expectation  is  aroused  and  I  feel  so  in- 
adequately prepared  and  qualified  to  satisfy  it?  But  I  must, 
I  will,  trust  in  Cod. 

I  had  a  very  cold  ride  the  first  part  of  my  journey.     My 


232  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

portmanteau  acts  ivcll.  The  cabman  charged  me  3/^-  and 
blustered  and  stormed  because  I  wanted  to  give  him  2/6. 
The  friends  are  all  pleased  to  see  me. 

LoNGTON,  March  26,  '55. 

My  dearest  Catherine  —  Bless  you  !  I  trust  you  received 
mine  this  morning  written  on  Saturday.  Should  you  not  re- 
ceive my  letters  regularly  during  this  visit,  wait  awhile 
patiently  and  attribute  the  failure  to  the  post,  not  to  any  wil- 
ful neglect  of  mine,  for  I  intend  writing  as  often  as  you  desire. 

On  the  whole,  I  had  a  good  day  yesterday  considering  that 
the  sermons  were  new  for  this  special  work.  In  the  morning 
I  preached  from  "  Pulling  them  out  of  the  fire  " —  the  first  time 
of  preaching.  I  think  it  will  make  an  effective  discourse.  I 
tried  to  the  utmost  of  my  ability  to  deepen  the  desire  of  the 
Christians  present  for  the  salvation  of  their  fellowmen.  At 
night  from  Blind  Bartimeus,  with  several  new  illustrations :  I 
had  much  liberty.  The  chapel  by  six  o'clock  was  packed  to 
suffocation,  many,  very  many,  were  sent  away  unable  to  get 
inside  the  door.  The  walls  and  ceiling  were  thoroughly  satu- 
rated by  the  perspiration,  so  much  so  that  the  water  dropped 
from  above  and  ran  down  the  walls.  We  had  a  few  good 
cases;  about  twenty ;  not  so  many  as  I  expected,  but  a  good 
commencement.  Oh,  it  would  do  your  soul  good  to  hear  the 
people  talk  of  the  good  work  that  is  going  on,  of  the  great  and 
glorious  changes  that  have  taken  place.  Expectation  is  every 
way  running  very  high  and  the  leaders  and  members  now  are 
prepared  to  expect  the  greatest  things.  I  was  tired  of  course 
last  night  and  wished  much  for  your  company  at  home,  and 
then  the  day  would  have  seemed  delightfully  complete. 

Write  me  when  you  receive  this  and  enclose  in  your  note 
the  elastic  out  of  the  collar  I  wore  on  Saturday,  I  have  come 
away  without  one  and  cannot  wear  these  all  rounds.  I  have 
got  a  horrid  pen  and  you  must  excuse  this  scrawl.  Give  my 
very  kind  love  to  your  mother.  Write  me  a  loving  letter  — 
I  am  anxious  to  hear  about  you.  Think  of  me  as  being  fully 
and  entirely  your  own  faithfully  and  for  ever.  Yes,  we  are 
one. 

P.S. —  My  ink  is  awfully  thick  and  this  pen  of  thine  will 
hardly  make  a  mark. 

Cauldon  Place,  Staffordshire  Potteries, 
March  28,   1855. 
My  dearest  and  precious  Catherine  —  Bless  you!     If  I 
could  but  have  you  in  a  snug  home  all  to  ourselves  it  would  be 
very  pleasant  and  happy. 

I  am  sorry  that  my  appetite  and  digestion  have  failed  me 
again,   directly  on   leaving   London.     I   believe   that   the  beer 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  233 

agreed  with  me  wonderfully  —  I  am  as  different  as  possible ; 
I  believe  that  bitter  ale  or  porter  would  be  very  beneficial  in 
this  respect  —  but,  do  not  fear,  I  will  stick  to  the  pledge. 
Send  me  word  how  you  make  the  beer,  and  I  will  try  and  get 
some  made  next  week.  I  hope  you  are  happy ;  send  me  all 
particulars  about  your  health.  I  am  staying  at  Mr.  Ridge- 
way's  ;  he  is  very  kind  and  cordial. 

Remember  me  as  being  all  your  own  faithfully,  yes  faith- 
fully yours.  Pray  for  me.  Oh  I  want  more  religion,  love  to 
God  and  love  to  man. 

Oldbury,  near  Birmingham, 
March  31/55. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  I  am  once  more 
located  in  a  new  abode.  The  sweet,  long,  trusting,  and  very 
tender  epistle  came  to  hand  this  morning.  I  should  have 
written  yesterday,  but  really  was  not  alone  scarce  five  minutes 
of  the  day.  You  may  expect  me  to  be  more  regular  now.  I 
have  announced  to  the  lady  where  I  am  staying  now  that  I 
do  not  go  out  at  all  to  visit,  and  I  intend  sticking  to  it.  I  am 
sorry  to  have  competition  two  days  next  week  ;  Mr.  Gough 
lectures  on  Monday  and  Tuesday.  The  note  you  sent  me 
from  the  Insurance  Society  is  not  satisfactory  in  fixing  me  to 
pay  £7  :  18  :  9;  they  have  put  me  down^  if  I  am  not  mistaken, 
£1  :o  :o  more  than  the  printed  form  states.  I  have  not  a 
printed  book  with  me,  but  I  think  it  was  £2:6:0  per  £100; 
but  I  left  the  card  at  your  house.  I  have  written  by  this  post 
to  the  secretary  and  then  you  shall,  when  he  answers,  have 
further  information. 

The  chapels  have  without  exception  been  very  full  during 
the  zveek.  And  I  trust  some  considerable  good  has  been  done. 
I  am  a  little  better  to-day ;  I  shall  have  some  horehound  beer 
made.  Thou  need  not  send  the  horehound ;  if  thou  had  sent 
me  word  how  to  direct  for  it  to  be  made,  that  is  what  I  want ; 
we  can  get  any  quantity  of  horehound  here. 

Bless  thee,  thy  letter  did  me  good.  It  seemed  so  trusting 
and  hopeful.  I  have  gathered  some  little  encouragement  con- 
cerning myself  during  the  week.  Mr.  Ridgeivay  has  made  me 
a  present  of  the  case  for  my  papers;  it  is  just  the  thing  I 
wanted.  Did  not  I  tell  thee?  When  wilt  thou  believe  in  my 
knowledge  of  human  nature?  It  would  have  cost  me  at  least 
loy-  or  more.  It  was  very  kind  of  him.  I  am  very  much 
pleased  with  Pearson  and  with  Blair,  and  I  hope  to  report 
some  favourable  if  not  considerable  progress  in  study  next 
week. 

Oldbury,  April  2,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  only  Love  —  I  am  writing  April,  thou 
seest.  How  quickly  is  time  flying  away.  Oh,  how  important 
the  moments,  how  seldom  we  think  so,  and  how  far  less  seldom 


234  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

we  act  as  if  they  were.  Well,  I  mean  this  month  to  be  a 
better  one  for  labour  and  results  than  the  last,  mentally, 
morally,  and  spiritually,  by  God's  blessing.  May  it  be  so! 
Amen ! 

And  how  are  you?  I  have  been  thinking  about  you  and 
your  future,  if  spared  you  will  soon  write  yourself  another 
name.  Bless  you,  I  trust  thou  wilt  be  happy.  You  will  be 
pleased  to  hear  that  I  am  very  much  better.  I  obtained  the 
Quinine  mixture  on  Saturday  night.  I  was  so  very  unwell  — 
and  I  am  taking  it  twice  a  day  instead  of  three  times ;  I  drank 
a  mug  of  strong  horehound  tea  yesterday,  and  it  is  astonishing 
how  much  better  I  am,  although  I  had  a  heavy  day  yesterday. 

The  congregations  were  very  good.  At  night  the  Chapel 
was  packed,  aisles  and  everywhere ;  a  very  respectable 
gathering.  I  preached  in  the  morning  with  great  liberty  and 
power,  and  at  night  I  had  a  comfortable  time  to  myself ;  the 
people  wept  very  much.  We  had  not  the  amount  of  good 
done  I  expected.     The  friends  took  down  sixteen  names. 

I  am  sorry,  and  I  said  so  from  the  pulpit,  that  our  services 
clashed  with  Mr.  Gough's  coming.  Three  of  the  most  re- 
spectable and  influential  persons  in  the  society  are  publi- 
cans !  !  !  !  It  is  positively  true !  All  apparently  more  than 
usually  nice,  good-hearted  people.  I  am  very  sorry  —  very, 
very  sorry.  I  hope  to  raise  the  religious  feelings  so  high  as  to 
make  them  all  ashamed  of  the  infernal  traffic  and  thus  leave  it. 

I  am  reading  Blair,  Pearson,  and  Dick  very  carefully.  The 
weather  is  very  beautiful.  Take  care  of  thy  dear  self.  We 
shall  soon  meet.  Write  me  always  particulars  about  your 
health.  Do  not  attempt  too  much,  as  is  thy  custom  as  well 
as  mine.  I  mean  physically  as  well  as  mentally.  I  am  glad 
Miss  Tasker  has  called.  She  is  a  good  creature,  I  think. 
Let  her  do  some  sewing  for  you.  Pay  her  what  she  charges 
or  more  if  you  think  it  is  worth  it, 

Smethwick,  nr.  Birmingham, 
April  4,  '55. 

My  own  precious  Catherine  —  Thy  sweet  note  came  to 
hand  this  morning.  I  trust  that  by  this  time  thou  art  much 
better.  Thou  should  wrap  up  well  when  going  out,  put  thy 
shawl  on,  and  then  I  think  the  East  Wind  would  not  get  to  thy 
chest.  I  am  better  in  health  but  not  very  first-rate  in  spirits. 
Several  things  perplex  me.  The  service  last  night  was  not  so 
successful,  altho'  the  congregation  far  exceeded  my  expecta- 
tion ;  we  had  four  or  five  very  good  cases,  but  we  ought  to 
have  had  more.  I  am  very  dissatisfied  with  the  state  of  my 
heart  towards  the  Lord.  I  have  too  much  of  self  wrought  up 
with  all  I  do.     The  Lord  help  me. 

The  persons  I  named  to  you  who  keep  public-houses  and  are 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  235 

members  of  society  here  have  been  to  hear  Gough  once  if  not 
both  nights.  I  trust  he  has  done  them  good.  You  would  be 
surprised  if  you  were  here  to  find  how  differently  the  traffic  is 
looked  upon  to  what  it  is  in  other  places.  It  seems  to  be  a 
settled  and  deep-rooted  conviction  that  ale  or  beer  is  as  much 
a  necessary  of  life  to  the  miners  and  furnacemen  as  bread  or 
meat.  And  these  publicans  would  tell  you  that  they  act  on 
this  principle;  they  do  not  open  on  the  Sabbath,  neither  do 
they  allow  drunkenness  on  their  premises,  etc.  These  are  the 
arguments  with  which  I  suppose  they  justify  the  business  to 

themselves. 

Smethwick,  Birmingham, 

April  6,  *55. 

My  own  dear  and  most  precious  Love  —  What  a  time  it 
seems  since  I  saw  you.  I  do  hope  that  cold  has  left  you  by 
this  and  that  you  are  enjoying  your  walks,  solitary  though 
they  be,  in  the  mild  spring  weather.  I  had  a  very  nice  ram- 
ble this  morning.  I  have  not  read  much  this  week,  but  I  have 
sat  too  close  and  worked  too  hard ;  I  found  that  out  yesterday. 
To-day  I  am  doing  nothing  but  this,  and  a  long  letter  to  Mr. 
Bates,  and  a  little  of  Pearson  and  Dick  to-night,  and  perhaps 
a  page  or  two  of  a  sermon.  I  don't  preach  to-night.  Mr. 
Bates  wrote  me  again  a  letter  as  long  as  the  one  you  have  [con- 
cerning Insurance].  He  has  seen  the  Doctor,  but  he  won't 
alter  —  he  has  written  to  the  Directors  at  Edinburgh  and  he 
recommends  me,  should  they  not  alter,  to  subinit.  It  is  a 
shame. 

We  have  had  a  good  week  on  the  whole,  some  of  the  cases 
very  satisfactory.  We  have  taken  down  about  eighty  names, 
many  more  persons  are  under  conviction,  and  I  trust  they  will 
be  gathered  in.  I  go  to  Bradford  to-morrow.  I  suppose  it 
is  about  140  miles.  I  shall  ride  first-class.  My  head  has  been 
very  bad ;  I  don't  know  when  worse  lately  than  yesterday. 
The  doctor  in  London  says  I  have  too  much  nervous  energy 
for  my  muscle.  Therefore  rest  and  exercise,  as  Dr.  Collinette 
of  Guernsey  said,  are  the  only  things  that  will  benefit  me.  My 
digestion  is  considerably  better.  You  will  say  I  am  talking  a 
deal  about  myself.  Well,  I  can  talk  to  thee.  And  my 
thoughts  run  on  this  just  now  —  I  don't  care  what  any  of 
them  say,  doctors  or  not,  I  believe  I  have  a  rational  hope 
(without  accident)  of  living  thirty  years  longer. —  Believe 
me  to  remain,  yours  very  faithfully  and  tenderly,    William. 

Bradford, 
April  10,  '55.  _ 
Mv  DEAREST   AND  DARLING  CATHERINE  —  In   heading  this 
letter  I   have  just  discovered   that   it  is  my  birthday.     I   am 
to-day  26.     Oh  the  importance  of  employing  this  fleeting  time. 


236  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Oh,  my  Catherine,  what  must  I  do?  I  am  almost  in  despair 
with  myself,  and  yet  I  am  afraid  if  I  were  to  study  more  it 
would  be  at  once  injurious  to  my  health.  I  am  preaching 
hard  and  therefore  must  be  content.  Bless  you ;  I  should  like 
much  to  see  you. 

I  am  not  very  comfortable  in  my  home  —  a  miserably  mis- 
managed family,  possessing  a  respectable  income  if  not  wealth, 
yet  here  is  very  little  domestic  happiness.  Snarling  and  snap- 
ping at  one  another ;  an  indulgent  mother  and  a  quiet  father. 
Oh,  it  is  almost  more  sometimes  than  my  patience  can  bear; 
and  I  am  inclined  when  I  hear  a  youth  of  17  tell  his  mother 
he  will  not  do  something,  to  tell  him  if  he  were  my  son,  and 
said  so  to  his  mother,  /  zvould  knock  him  down.  Well,  thank 
God,  I  never  got  so  far  in  all  my  waywardness  and  ingratitude 
to  a  fond  and  indulgent  mother.  And  yet  we  have  a  beautiful 
house,  furniture,  etc.  Happiness  doth  not  consist  in  the  many 
things  which  a  man  possesseth. 

Bradford, 
April  12,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  I  have  been  think- 
ing much  about  thee  the  last  two  days.  And  I  doubt  not  thou 
hast  been  thinking  about  me  too. 

Your  letter  and  contents  came  to  hand  yesterday.  I  con- 
tinue the  cold-water  bathing  every  morning.  The  remarks  on 
Woman's  position  I  will  read  again  before  I  answer.  From 
the  first  reading  I  cannot  see  anything  in  them  to  lead  me  for 
one  moment  to  think  of  altering  my  opinion.  You  combat  a 
great  deal  that  I  hold  as  firmly  as  you  do  —  viz.  her  equality, 
her  perfect  equality,  as  a  whole  —  as  a  being.  But  as  to  con- 
cede that  she  is  man's  equal,  or  capable  of  becoming  man's 
equal,  in  intellectual  attainments  or  prowess  —  I  must  say  that 
is  contradicted  by  experience  in  the  world  and  my  honest  con- 
viction. You  know,  my  dear,  I  acknowledge  the  superiority 
of  your  sex  in  very  many  things  —  in  others  I  believe  her  in- 
ferior.    Vice  versa  with  man. 

I  would  not  stop  a  woman  preaching  on  any  account.  I 
would  not  encourage  one  to  begin.  You  should  preach  if  you 
felt  moved  thereto :  felt  equal  to  the  task.  I  would  not  stay 
you  if  I  had  power  to  do  so.  Altho',  /  should  not  like  it.  It 
is  easy  for  you  to  say  my  views  are  the  result  of  prejudice ; 
perhaps  they  are.  I  am  for  the  world's  salvation;  I  will 
quarrel  with  no  means  that  promises  help. 

Bradford, 
April  16,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Kate —  ...  I  am  yours, 
wilful,  impulsive,  and  fitful  as  I  am,  I  am  yours  in  an  afifection 
enduring  and  tender  and  faithful.  And  I  am  indulging  in 
fond  hopes  that  we  shall  be  very  happy  together. 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  237 

I  hope  to  have  an  industrious  week.  I  have  changed  resi- 
dence as  you  will  see,  and  am  now  very  comfortable,  have  a 
delightfully  pleasant  bedroom,  and  all  my  wants  carefully  and 
thoughtfully  supplied. 

This  is  my  first  entry  into  Yorkshire,  and  of  course  I  was 
unknown  but  by  report  among  my  own  people.  I  stand  now 
on  more  favourable  ground,  and  if  I  can  find  material  I  have 
no  doubt  in  after  days,  if  spared,  to  see  something  very 
glorious  indeed. 

Care  of  B.  J.  Proctor,  Esq., 

15  Regent  Terrace,  Newc.\stle-on-Tyne, 

April  21,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  precious  Katie  —  I  have  just  arrived, 
taken  tea,  and  sit  down  to  write  to  you  a  hasty  note.  So  far 
as  I  can  judge  I  am  domiciled  very  comfortably  indeed. 
Whom  do  you  think  I  saw  in  the  station  at  Leeds,  just  as  I 
was  taking  my  place  in  the  carriage  for  the  North?  "Luke 
Tycrman."  I  went  and  spoke  to  him  and  he  appeared  very 
cordial.  He  is  stationed  at  Newcastle.  He  invited  me  to  go 
and  see  him;  he  was  going  to  Bradford  to  preach  to-morrow. 
I  hear  he  has  been  very  ill,  but  is  now  much  better.  David 
Hay  is  stationed  at  Bradford ;  I  did  not  see  him  while  there. 

Bless  you,  it  has  been  a  splendid  day  and  I  have  had  a  splen- 
did ride  —  oh  what  beautiful  and  diversified  scenery  have  we 
passed  through,  flying  more  than  anything  else  —  rushing, 
screaming,  panting  071,  on,  ON,  40  miles  an  hour  sometimes, 
then  stopping,  and  then  on  again,  until  we  reached  Newcastle ; 
and  I  wanted  yon  with  mc.  I  want  you  to  see  all  that's  beau- 
tiful and  share  all  that  is  truly  blessed  and  sweet  and  precious. 
I  am  full  of  hope  for  this  place.  I  have  no  doubt  but  it  will 
be  hard  work  to  make  an  impression,  but  it  can  be  done,  it 
must  be  done ;  God  help  us  and  it  shall  be  done.  The  preacher 
is  a  very  hearty  man,  and  I  doubt  not  but  we  shall  have  a  very 
cordial  co-operation.     Good-bye.     I  must  be  ofT. 

15  Regent  Terrace,  Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
April  23,  '55. 

My  own  dear  Catherine  —  I  wonder  how  you  are  getting 
on.  I  should  much  like  to  see  and  have  a  talk  with  you  this 
very  fine  morning.  I  am  just  going  down  to  Tynemoitth  with 
Dr.  Candelet,  one  of  our  preachers,  to  have  another  fond  look 
at  "  old  ocean."  I  wish  thou  wast  here  and  going  with 
us.  .  .  . 

The  people  are  shrczvd,  intelligent,  and  cold  here,  prover- 
bially so.  From  all  I  can  gather  the  cause  of  religion  is  very 
low.  all  sects  alike  involved  in  a  cold,  frozen  apathy.  The 
chapel  in  which  I  am  preaching  is  a  very  good  one.  Will  hold 
about  1,200,  and  we  had  it  near  full  last  night.     The  best  con- 


238  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

gregation  that  has  been  in  it  for  many  a  year.  Wm.  Martin 
was  here  a  fortnight  ago,  preached  in  it  twice  on  Easter 
Sunday,  and  on  the  following  Monday  gave  another  edition 
of  the  London  speech.  But,  after  all,  I  suppose  I  had  double 
the  number  of  people  to  hear  me  to  what  he  had.  The  Re- 
formers here  are  very  unsettled ;  I  suppose  both  the  preachers 
would  come  to  us  if  they  could.  Altho'  we  had  so  large  a 
crowd  last  night,  for  lack  of  earnest  oo-workers  the  prayer- 
meeting  was  comparatively  a  failure.  12  persons  came  for- 
ward. Many  stayed  under  deep  conviction,  but  I  could  not 
get  any  one  to  look  about  the  chapel  and  bring  the  penitents 
up.  I  was  very  much  annoyed  and  wished  myself  anywhere 
else,  and  told  the  ladies  so.  Oh  it  is  indeed  hard  work.  On 
the  whole,  the  commencement  is  very  encouraging. 

Write  me  full  particulars  of  what  you  are  doing.  I  am 
much  better  in  health.  I  go  from  hence  to  Manchester.  You 
will  be  surprised  when  I  tell  you  the  Bradford  friends  gave 
me  £5:0:0  for  my  fortnight's  toil  —  out  of  which  my  travel- 
ling expenses  were  £1:6:3.  I  shall  not  get  much  here. 
Never  mind,  this  is  not  my  chief  aim  or  anything  near  it. 
No ;  I  can  say  that  the  great  ruling  anxiety  of  my  mind  is  the 
salvation  of  sinners  and  the  glory  of  God.  My  time  is  gone. 
Good-bye.     Bless  you  a  thousand  times. 

Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
April  28,  '55. 

My  dear  Kate,  my  own  true  Love  —  Your  very  kind  note 
is  just  to  hand.  Bless  you ;  I  do  indeed  thank  you  for  all  your 
kind  counsel  and  will  once  more  try  again.  I  have  indeed  this 
week  been  low.  I  should  not  like  to  continue  this  work  if  I 
am  to  be  as  I  have  been  for  the  last  3  weeks.  My  mental  ma- 
chinery has  been  a  source  of  great  anxiety,  and  other  things 
have  pressed  upon  me  with  a  painful  assiduity.  However,  it 
is  no  use  talking  about  it;  we  will  try  again.  .  .  . 

I  am  at  present  more  than  ever  uncertain  as  to  any  step 
about  the  future.  If  I  say  anything  to  Conference  about  my- 
self it  will  be  to  request  a  Circuit,  but  to  leave  it  with  them. 
If  I  had  more  general  knowledge,  love  for  study  and  material 
for  the  pulpit,  I  should  not  hesitate  a  moment,  because  all 
fears  about  my  health  are  removed ;  but  a  consciousness  of  my 
emptiness,  my  incapacity  to  sustain  a  position  of  such  vast  im- 
portance, presses  on  me  until  it  unfits  my  mind  for  anything. 
A  year's  pause  might  remedy  this  to  some  extent. 

As  yet  we  have  nothing  done  here ;  all  looks  discouraging, 
and  I  dread  Manchester.  I  have  however  started  afresh  in 
the  work  of  gathering  knowledge,  and  hope  to  report  pro- 
ficiency. I  cannot  but  be  surprised  at  the  want  of  any  aspir- 
ing emotion  so  apparent  in  many  of  our  ministers ;  they  are 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  239 

nothing  and  seem  content.     I  deplore  this,  and  yet  if  I  was 
like  them  1  should  be  very  much  happier ! 

May  I,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  May,  that  brings 
sunny  days,  soft  breezes,  and  opening  flowers,  comes  in  cold 
and  bleak  with  us.  I  was  in  hopes,  especially  for  thy  dear 
sake,  that  we  were  about  to  have  some  calm  and  continued 
summer  weather.  Perhaps,  however,  it  may  be  finer  with 
you  in  the  South  than  with  us  in  the  far  North.  I  am  all 
alone  —  far  away  from  almost  any  one  who  understands  me 
or  can  sympathize  with  me.  And  yet  I  am  not  unhappy.  Oh, 
that  I  could  learn  yet  more  fully  than  I  have  yet  learned  to 
lean  chiefly  on  God.  Oh  how  much  am  I  the  creature  of  cir- 
cumstances. Last  night  in  preaching  I  was  almost  as  much 
shut  up,  //  not  quite  so,  as  when  you  heard  me  the  last  time 
at  Brunswick  Chapel.  I  felt  right  when  I  went  to  the  Chapel, 
familiar  with  my  subject  and  desiring  success,  and  praying 
for  it,  too.  The  congregation  was  good,  and  all  were  well 
prepared ;  but  I  failed.  However,  we  had  23  very  good  cases 
afterwards,  several  young  men  who  promise  great  useful- 
ness. .  .  . 

Hood's  Buildings,  Windmill  Hills, 

Gateshead-on-Tyne, 

May  2,  '55. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  Thy  long  loving 
letter  is  to  hand  this  morning.  Now  do  let  me  try  and  answer 
it ;  after  the  gentle  chiding  it  contains  I  will  try  and  do  better. 
The  scrap  you  sent  me  1  read,  then  burned;  no  answer  to  it; 
I  must  let  deeds  speak  and  not  words.  I  might  truthfully  have 
signed  yesterday's  letter  as  you  wish  —  /  feel  on  the  subject 
as  you  do.  I  read  the  article  on  It  zvill  never  do  to  be  idle;  it 
is  original,  striking,  and  correct,  and  did  me  good.  I  am 
working  a  little.     Bless  you ;  for  your  sake  I  will  persevere. 

Yesterday  was  an  industrious  one ;  went  to  chapel  well  pre- 
pared to  preach  —  a  good  and  attentive  congregation  awaiting 
me,  and  I  again  failed  most  decidedly,  and  yet  we  had  some 
precious  cases  of  conversion.  The  work  is  very  genuine  and 
satisfactory.  I  find  the  great  difference  in  the  North  is  not,  as 
I  was  taught  to  expect,  in  the  non-impressibility  of  the  people, 
but  in  the  formality  and  death-slumber  of  the  professing  Chris- 
tians, and  the  hindrance  to  the  spread  of  the  salvation  of  the 
Cross  is  in  the  influence  of  a  cold,  systematic  theology  and  a 
stiff  theoretical  development  of  the  truth.  I  am  looking  for  a 
successful  meeting  to-night.  I  am  happier  in  my  own  soul, 
more  composed  and  trusting  with  regard  to  the  future,  than  I 
have  been  for  some  time.  I  hope  I  have  started  in  the  true 
path  of  progress.  ... 


240  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Gateshead, 
May  4,  1855. 

My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  How  art  thou? 
Oh  I  have  been  thinking  about  thee  much  this  last  day  or  two. 
I  am  better  in  health  of  body  and  mind  and  soul.  Once  more 
I  have  to  report  that  we  finished  up  with  a  perfect  triumph. 
What  can  we  say  to  it  but  bow  and  wonder  and  adore?  Last 
night  the  chapel  was  full.  The  prayer-meeting  crowded  — 
densely  crowded.  Forty  names  were  taken,  many  of  them 
most  interesting  cases,  and  there  were  numbers,  vast  numbers, 
under  very  deep  conviction ;  and  then  in  forming  our  estimate 
of  this  work  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  this  is  the  North  — 
where  the  people  are  proverbially  unimpressible,  intelligent, 
and  difficult  to  move.  That  the  church  was  in  a  deplorable  low 
state,  so  much  so,  nay  more  so,  for  many  of  the  office-bearers 
were  absolutely  opposed  to  my  coming.  Therefore,  all  these 
difficulties  have  had  to  be  met;  prejudice  and  coldness  to  be 
removed ;  and  it  has  been  done,  triumphantly  done,  and  all  com- 
bine to  say  that  they  cannot  remember  a  work  like  it  in  any 
of  the  churches  of  the  town.  Wesleyans,  Reformers,  Primi- 
tives, and  New  Connexion  men  have  all  worked  together,  knelt 
at  the  same  Communion-rail,  and  side  by  side  fought  the 
common  foe,  and  as  the  result  160  names  have  been  taken. 
What  can  we  say  to  this  but  that  it  is  the  Lord's  doing  and 
marvellous  in  our  eyes?  With  facts  like  these  before  our 
minds,  retreat  from  this  path  seems  impossible,  and  once  more 
bright  visions  of  future  increased  usefulness  are  flitting  before 
my  eyes.  If  the  results  here  had  been  gained  in  twelve 
months'  labour  I  should  have  been  hailed  on  every  hand  as  a 
most  successful  minister ;  but  because  they  have  been  gained 
in  a  fortnight  I  know  many  will  question  and  doubt;  but  I 
cannot  but  see  why  they  should  not  be  as  permanent  as  if 
gathered  in  or  brought  about  by  a  more  tedious  and  lengthened 
process.  .  .  . 

25  Hyde  Grove,  Shakespeare  Street, 
Manchester, 

May  II,  1855. 

My  dearest,  my  precious  Catherine  —  I  intended  writing 
to  you  yesterday,  but  was  occupied  the  earlier  part  of  the  day 
in  answering  a  letter  of  8  pages  received  from  a  Unitarian 
gentleman  of  Gateshead,  who  came  to  hear  me  preach  there, 
and  took  exception  to  being  classed  with  infidels,  etc.,  and  pro- 
nounced worthy  of  the  same  condemnation  and  exposed  to  the 
same  eternal  woe.  Several  vexatious  little  circumstances  pre- 
vented me  writing,  or  rather  getting  a  letter  posted,  during  the 
after  part  of  the  day.  I  rather  expected  a  line  from  you  this 
morning,  looked  anxiously  for  the  postman,  but  he  passed  our 
gate  to  my  great  disappointment.     I   should  very  much  like 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  241 

to  see  you,  and  had  you  been  anywhere  within  reach,  say  50 
miles,  this  morning  would  certainly  have  found  me  by  your 
side  or  with  your  own  dear  self  in  my  arms.  It  seemeth  a 
long,  long  time  since  I  left  London ;  I  can  hardly  believe  it  is 
only  six  n'ccks. 

My  struggle  here  in  Manchester  is  a  lonesome  one.     I  hardly 
know  how  to  estimate  the  work.     I  am  looking  onwards  as 
patiently  as  I  can  towards  Sunday  and  next  week.     The  re- 
spectable connected  with  the  Chapel  come  very  little,  and  yet 
we  have  had  a  few  good  cases,  among  others  the  two  daughters 
of  the  lady  with  whom  I  am  staying:  one  the  eldest,  a  beauti- 
ful, blithe  creature,  the  other  young,  about  14,  but  intelligent; 
their  father  was  a  minister  amongst  us,  and  has  been  now  some 
two  years  in  Heaven.     The  mother,   of  course,   is  much   re- 
joiced, and  they  all  are  very  kind  and  thoughtful  for  my  com- 
fort.    I  think  that,  with  one  exception,  Manchester  would  suit 
us  well  as  a  residence,  and  for  aught  I  know  that  may  be  no 
hindrance  at  all.     Of  course  we  should  have  to  live  out  of 
town.     The  omnibuses  are  very  nice  ones,  as  large  again  as 
those  in  London,  and  far  more  comfortable  than  a  cab.     You 
could  ride  in  them  without  being  incommoded,  and  if  we  could 
find  a  nice  home  near  one  of  our  chapels  —  that  is  the  dififi- 
culty   I    refer   to  —  then    I    think    ^Manchester   would    suit   us 
well.     But  we  shall  see.     I  had  rather  take  a  Circuit  for  a 
time,   but  the   difficulties    in   that   path   increase ;   invitations, 
pressing  and  urgent  ones,  continue  to  reach  me,  and  those  who 
at  the  commencement  of  the  work  appeared  distant  and  sus- 
picious are  now  inquiring  for  my  services.  ...  I  have  seen  a 
tin-box  that  will  do  capitally  to  hold  your  bonnet  when  travel- 
ling, and  that  and  a  portmanteau,  I  should  think,  would  serve 
you  well.     I  think  much  about  you  and  trust  you  are  happy 
and  still  improving  in  health.  .  .  . 

25  Hyde  Grove,  Shakespeare  Street, 
Manchester, 

May  15.  '55. 

My  dearest  Kate  —  Bless  thee,  thy  letter  is  just  to  hand. 
I  have  to  go  away  to  Macclesfield  to  meet  the  preachers  about 
my  next  three  weeks'  arrangements.  They  are  pulling  me  to 
pieces  —  it  is  one  heavy  item  I  have  to  pay  for  my  popularity. 

I  suppose  we  must  be  married,  as  you  say,  the  week  ending 
the  1 6th ;  but  more  of  it  in  my  next.  We  are  getting  on  pretty 
well.  They  want  me  to  stay  next  week  over,  and  the  Presi- 
dent wants  me  to  go  to  York. 

Do  as  you  think  best  about  everything.  Get  whatever  you 
want.  I  will  write  to-morrow.  I  am  working  hard.  Am 
reading  a  little.  Making  a  sermon  on  Bring  forth  fruits  meet 
for  repentance. 


242  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

I  hope  you  will  improve  in  health  now.  I  am  engaged  up  to 
Sunday  3rd.  The  postponement  will  suit  me  well,  as  it  will 
enable  me  to  comply  with  one  or  two  important  and  pressing 
invitations. 

25  Hyde  Grove,  Shakespeare  Street, 

Manchester^ 

22,  '55- 

My  dearest  Catherine  —  Bless  you.  I  shall  soon,  all  well, 
change  my  address  and  call  you  my  dearest  Wife.  It  is  aston- 
ishing how  of  late  that  name  has  gathered  unto  it  in  my  estima- 
tion charms  and  sweetness  which  it  lacked  before.  I  intended 
writing  you  a  long  letter,  but  shall  not  have  time.  I  think  if  it 
be  that  we  cannot  be  married  at  Brunswick  Chapel  we  will  let 
Mr.  Thomas  marry  us  at  his  own  chapel.  I  should  like  it  much 
if  it  can  be  done  without  giving  offence  to  Mr.  C,  seeing  that 
we  have  discussed  the  matter. 

Write  me  per  return  how  much  black  silk  you  will  want  for 
a  flounced  dress  and  whether  you  would  prefer  that  to  a  satinet 
or  satinture  —  I  intend  having  a  first-rate  one.  H  I  buy  it 
without  your  letter  I  shall  get  black  silk  and  16  yards. 

I  am  very  low  spirited  this  morning.  We  are  not  getting 
on  very  well  ■ —  not  near  so  well  as  I  expected.  How  are  you  ? 
Are  you  happy?  Write  me  all  particulars  about  yourself.  1 
am  looking  up ;  have  been  praying  for  you.  You  need  not 
have  any  fear  of  my  being  over  elated;  I  have  almost  as  little 
self-confidence  as  ever.  I  wish  I  had  more,  I  should  preach 
far  better.  Look  up,  all  will  yet  be  well.  I  shall  soon  call 
you  fully  mine,  and  we  shall  be  happy. 

2~,  Hyde  Grove,  Shakespeare  Street, 
Manchester, 

May  24,  '55. 

My  dearest  Catherine  —  Your  very  kind  letter  came  to 
hand  this  morning.  My  head  aches  very  bad  indeed,  and  I  am 
very  glad  of  a  day  or  two's  rest.  You  must  not  expect  me  to 
say  much ;  in  fact,  I  am  tired  of  this  mode  of  communication, 
we  seem  so  felicitous  in  misunderstanding  one  another.  Just 
by  way  of  calming  your  fears  I  will  say  that  I  do  not  think  that 
there  is  the  smallest  danger  of  popularity  making  either  fop 
or  fool  of  me.  If  I  am  not  very  much  mistaken  it  has  made 
me  a  wiser  and  a  soberer  man.  I  think  the  former  part  of 
your  letter  censorious  and  needlessly  severe ;  the  latter,  as  I 
say  above,  is  as  kind  as  usual  and  therefore  acceptable. 

I  leave  here  to-morrow  for  Burslem.  So  your  next  must 
be  directed  to  me.  care  of  Mr.  Hawley.  Waterloo  Road. 
Burslem,  Staffordshire.  I  am  annoyed  with  the  letter  of  Mr. 
Woodhouse  relative  to  my  essay ;  send  me  the  strictures  en- 
closed in  your  next.     They  asked  me  to  write  an  essay  on  the 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  243 

characteristics  of  an  Apostolic  Ministry,  and  then  find  fault 
because  I  have  not  made  excuses  for  and  drawn  pictures  of 
the  do-nothings  of  the  present  day.  I  shall  write  him  a  note 
on  the  subject.  Wait  awhile  and  we  will,  if  spared,  try  and 
do  something.  Yes,  zve  zvill.  God  help  us  to  be  one  and  to 
labour  for  Him.  What  a  poor  magazine  your  letter  is  in.  I 
am  literally  ashamed  of  it  as  the  organ  of  our  denomination. 
The  revival  movement  shall  have  an  organ,  and  if  the  Maga- 
zine won't  take  it  up  some  other  newspaper  shall. 

We  finished  up  pretty  well  last  night.  It  has  been  a  hard 
struggle  for  vie,  how  hard  no  earthly  being  knows.  I  have 
made  many  friends  in  Manchester,  among  others  the  Mr.  Shut- 
tleworth,  once  Editor  of  the  Magazine,  whose  "  Birthday 
Thoughts  "  are  in  the  present  one ;  he  was  opposed  to  the 
thing  before  he  knew  and  heard  me.  None  have  applauded 
me  more  sincerely  and  intelligently  than  Mr.  Hulme.  I  expect 
he  will  be  president  of  the  Conference. 

You  must  excuse  this  scrawl.  I  have  several  more  letters 
to  write,  and  I  ought  to  be  out  of  doors.  Write  me  a  line  to- 
morrow directed  to  Burslem.  I  am  not  sure  whether  I  shall 
get  the  black  silk.  Without  flounces  I  don't  like  them,  and  I 
don't  want  to  cross  your  wish.  .  .   . 

P.S. —  I  wish  I  could  come  and  see  you  to-day.  I  am  satis- 
fied all  this  gloom  and  mists  would  be  dispersed.  But  it  will 
be  over  soon,  and  if  spared  all  will  be  well. 

Conference,  Sheffield, 
June  I,  '55. 
My  dearest  and  most  precious  Love  —  I  hope  you 
received  my  letter  posted  from  hence  yesterday.  I  under- 
stand that  the  Conference  almost  unanimously  resolved  that 
I  be  devoted  to  my  present  sphere  of  labour  throughout  the 
next  year.  I  am  to  have  iioo  for  the  year  and  my  travelling 
expenses.  This,  of  course,  is  an  advance  of  £30  or  £40  on 
the  young  man's  salary.  My  labours  are  to  be  under  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Annual  Conference.  I  think  so  far  the  matter 
seems  providential,  and  is  to  my  mind  satisfactory.  The 
preachers  and  friends  are  very  cordial  —  and.  bless  you,  I  do 
hope  we  shall  be  very  happy.  I  am  tolerably  well  in  health, 
and  hope  with  a  week  or  two's  relaxation  to  be  first-rate. 
York,  Chester.  Ashton,  and  many  other  places  are  desiring 
my  services.  I  do  not  know  all  particulars,  but  I  shall  obtain 
them  and  tell  thee  all  things  with  my  own  lips  on  Saturday 
week.  I  have  told  Mr.  Bates  that  I  shall  spend  the  week  prior 
to  our  marriage  at  his  house,  if  he  will  very  kindly  invite  me. 
T  hope  you  are  well ;  do  not  go  about  at  all  while  this  weather 
lasts.  I  have  had  to  pay  £5:5:0  for  my  Beneficent  Fund 
Subscription  —  but  I  suppose  they  are  to  give  me  £6:0:0  for 


244  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

my  last  London  service  —  so  one  will  cover  the  other.  I  like 
the  appearance  of  the  Conference  much.  The  preachers  and 
laymen  w^ork  well  together.  I  heard  the  charge  last  night  by 
Dr.  Crofts.  I  hope  my  essay  is  at  least  as  good  a  thing  as 
that.  Mr.  Cooke  is  very  cordial.  I  am  going  to  dine  with 
him.  I  shall  hear  what  he  says  about  our  affairs.  I  have  no 
doubt  all  will  be  perfectly  plain.  I  will  enclose  you  what 
passes  between  us  after  dinner.  I  am  staying  with  Mr.  Bates. 
I  am  indulging  fond  hopes  —  I  fear  not  but  that  we  shall  be 
happy.  I  am  sure  I  love  you,  and  I  need  not  say  that  I  shall 
do  all  that  a  loving  and  willing  heart  can  prompt  me  to  hush 
thy  every  fear  and  make  thee  blissful  and  joyous. 

Great  Alfred  Street,  Nottingham, 
June  5,  '55. 
My  dearest  and  most  precious  Kate  —  Thy  kind  note  is 
just  to  hand.  All  well,  Mr.  Thomas  shall  marry  us.  I  do  not 
know  hardly  how  to  write  him  on  the  subject.  But  I  suppose 
I  must.  I  would  much  rather  call.  I  have  not  been  very  high 
spirited  since  the  Conference,  so  perhaps  my  last  note  or  two 
have  partaken  of  the  colour  of  my  feelings.  Your  last  was 
quite  satisfactory  or  I  should  have  said  so.  I  quite  feel  as  you 
do  with  respect  to  the  ceremony ;  in  fact,  the  whole  affair,  and 
most  heartily  wish  it  was  over.  But  that  soon  will  be.  Time 
flies  most  rapidly.  I  shall  soon  once  more  be  sitting  by  your 
side.  I  shall  make  no  arrangements  for  the  future,  and  should 
we  not  have  any  family,  and  should  your  health  permit  it,  we 
will  not  encumber  ourselves  with  a  home.  I  have  obtained 
an  address  for  apartments  at  Ryde,  Isle  of  Wight.  .  .  . 

And  now  follows  the  last  letter  before  the  marriage: 

Spalding, 
June  8,  '55. 
My  own  darling  Kate  —  Bless  you,  how  soon  once  more 
shall  we  meet  again.  Meet  as  we  have  never  met  before,  with 
different  feelings  and  different  prospects.  That  which  has 
been  regarded  as  looming  in  the  far-off  distance  now  is  very, 
very  near.  You  are  to  be  mine.  We  are  to  be  one.  Yes, 
one.  My  whole  soul  must  lie  open  before  your  gaze,  and  it 
will  be.  Yes !  it  shall  be.  And  thou  art  to  be  my  guardian 
watcher.  And  we  are  to  commence  our  life  together  in  one 
united  and,  I  trust,  continued  sacrifice,  for  God's  glory  and 
the  welfare  of  our  fellowmen.  And  yet  in  it  I  trust  we  shall 
be  happy.  Mutual  forbearance,  affection,  heart-love,  will  do 
all  things,  be  a  talisman  which  will  turn  all  our  domestic  anx- 
ieties and  trials  into  bonds  of  love  and  cause  of  mutual  joy. 
You  know  me ;  I  am  fitful,  very ;  I  mourn  over  it,  I  hate  myself 
on  account  of  it.     But  there  it  is ;  a  dark  column  in  the  inner 


-^vj  MANY  TROUBLES 


245 


life  of  my  spirit.  "You  know  it."  Bless  you;  I  will  try; 
but  suppose  I  fail  to  make  myself  better,  thou  wilt  bear  with 
me  and  I  will  try  and  be  all  that  thou  desirest.  I  pray  for 
help  from  on  High.  Oh  yes,  God  will  give  it  me.  Nay,  give 
it  us. 

The  reader  will  remember  a  reference  in  one  of  these 
letters  to  what  is  called  the  Women's  Question.  The  let- 
ter of  Catherine  Mumford  which  provoked  that  reply  is 
happily  preserved,  and  with  this  letter,  illuminating  in  many 
ways,  the  present  chapter  of  our  history  may  conclude. 

From  Catherine  Mumford  to  William  Booth. 

April  9,  '55. 

My  own  de.^r  Love  —  I  am  all  alone  and  not  equal  to  much 
besides,  so  I  will  write  a  bit  to  thee,  which  generally  makes  me 
forget  loneliness  and  everything  else  for  a  time.  I  have  been 
thinking  that  I  did  not  notice  a  little  information  in  one  of  your 
notes  last  week,  although  it  gave  me  very  great  pleasure.  I 
refer  to  your  defence  of  those  two  subjects  not  only  dear  to 
my  heart,  but,  in  my  estimation,  of  vast  importance  to  the 
world. ^  I  am  sure,  had  I  been  present,  I  should  have  re- 
garded you  with  increased  pride  and  affection,  for  there  is 
nothing  so  inspires  my  admiration  as  a  noble  stand  for  right, 
in  opposition  to  paltry  prejudice  and  lordly  tyranny.  I  admire 
Mr.  Thomas  more  for  his  nohle  nature  than  his  splendid  genius. 
I  cannot  bear  a  time-serving,  truth-sacrificing  spirit.  I  would 
not  falsify  my  convictions  on  any  subject  to  gain  the  plaudits 
of  a  zvorld,  and  proud  shall  I  be  if  my  husband  proves  himself 
in  this  respect  a  man  whom  I  can  delight  to  honour.  It  is  a 
great  pity  that  in  the  Church,  at  least,  there  should  be  so  great 
a  need  for  this  fearless  defence  of  what,  but  for  enslaving 
prejudice  and  pitiable  littleness,  would  at  once  commend  itself 
to  every  man's  conscience ;  but  since  it  is  so,  God  multiply  the 
unflinching  defenders  of  principles  and  "  rights  "  of  all  kinds. 

I  am  thankful  to  my  heart's  core  that  you  are  a  teetotaler; 
so  deep  is  my  conviction  of  the  righteousness  of  the  principle 
that  nothing  could  buy  my  consent  to  your  upholding  and 
countenancing  the  drinking  customs  of  society.  I  believe  that 
God's  deep  curse  is  on  them,  and  never  till  the  Church  repents, 
and  washes  her  hands  of  them,  will  she  do  much  for  the  world. 
The  convinced,  convicted  multitudes  of  her  members  must 
end  the  controversy  by  coming  out  on  the  side  of  right,  or 
mere  worldlings  will  put  them  to  shame  (as  they  are  doing) 
and  take  the  flag  of  this  glorious  conflict,  and  final  victory,  for 
ever  out  of  their  hands.     Oh  that  God  may  send  some  mighty- 

^  Teetotalism  and  Women's  Rights. 


246  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

rushing  moral  influence  to  arouse  them.  I  know  you  say 
Amen,  and  it  is  no  httle  gratification  to  me  that  you  not  only 
sympathize  with  my  views,  but  defend  them ;  bless  you,  it  is 
sweet  to  see  and  feel  alike,  is  it  not? 

If,  on  that  other  subject  you  mention,  my  views  are  right, 
how  delighted  I  should  be  for  you  to  see  as  fully  with  me  on  it 
too;  you  know  I  feel  no  less  deeply  on  this  subject,  and  per- 
haps you  think  I  take  rather  a  prejudiced  view  of  it ;  but  I  have 
searched  the  Word  of  God  through  and  through,  I  have  tried 
to  deal  honestly  with  every  passage  on  the  subject,  not  for- 
getting to  pray  for  light  to  perceive  and  grace  to  submit  to  the 
truth,  however  humiliating  to  my  nature,  but  I  solemnly  assert 
that  the  more  I  think  and  read  on  the  subject,  the  more  satis- 
fied I  become  of  the  true  and  scriptural  character  of  my  own 
views.  I  am  ready  to  admit  that  in  the  majority  of  cases  the 
training  of  woman  has  made  her  man's  inferior,  as  under  the 
degrading  slavery  of  heathen  lands  she  is  inferior  to  her  own 
sex  in  Christian  countries ;  but  that  naturally  she  is  in  any  re- 
spect except  physical  strength  and  courage,  inferior  to  man  I 
cannot  see  cause  to  believe,  and  I  am  sure  no  one  can  prove  it 
from  the  Word  of  God,  and  it  is  on  this  foundation  that  pro- 
fessors of  religion  always  try  to  establish  it.  Oh  prejudice, 
what  will  it  not  do !  I  would  not  alter  woman's  domestic 
position  (when  indeed  it  is  scriptural)  because  God  has  plainly 
fixed  it;  He  has  told  her  to  obey  her  husband,  and  therefore 
she  ought  to  do  so,  if  she  profess  to  serve  God ;  her  husband's 
rule  over  her  was  part  of  the  sentence  for  her  disobedience, 
which  would,  by  the  by,  have  been  no  curse  at  all  if  he  had 
ruled  over  her  before,  by  dint  of  superiority  —  but  God  or- 
dained her  subjection  as  a  punishment  for  sin,  and  therefore 
I  submit ;  but  I  cannot  believe  that  inferiority  was  the  ground 
of  it;  if  it  had,  it  must  have  existed  prior  to  the  curse  and 
thus  have  nullified  it. 

Oh  I  believe  that  volumes  of  light  will  yet  be  shed  on  the 
world  on  this  subject;  it  will  bear  examination  and  abundantly 
repay  it.  We  want  a  few  mighty  and  generous  spirits  to  go 
thoroughly  into  it,  pen  in  hand ;  and  I  believe  that  the  time 
is  not  far  distant  when  God  will  raise  up  such  ;  but  I  believe 
woman  is  destined  to  assume  her  true  position,  and  exert  her 
proper  influence  by  the  special  exertions  and  attainments  of 
her  oztm  sex;  she  has  to  struggle  through  mighty  difficulties 
too  obvious  to  need  mentioning,  but  they  will  eventually  dwin- 
dle before  the  spell  of  her  developed  and  cultivated  mind. 
The  heaving  of  society  in  America  (the  birthplace  of  so 
much  that  is  great  and  noble),  though  throwing  up,  as  all  such 
movements  do,  much  that  is  absurd  and  extravagant  and  which 
/  no  more  approve  than  you,  yet  shoAvs  that  principles  are 
working  and  enquiries  awakening.     ]\Iay  the  Lord,  even  the 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  247 

just  and  impartial  one,  overrule  all  for  the  true  emancipation 
of  women  from  the  swaddling-bands  of  prejudice,  ignorance, 
and  custom,  which,  almost  the  world  over,  have  so  long  de- 
based and  wronged  her.  In  appealing  thus  to  the  Lord  1  am 
deeply  sincere,  for  I  believe  that  one  of  the  greatest  boons  to 
the  race  would  be  woman's  exaltation  to  her  proper  position 
mentally  and  spiritually.  Who  can  tell  its  consequences  to 
posterity?  If  what  writers  on  physiology  say  be  true,  and 
experience  seems  to  render  it  unquestionable,  what  must  be 
the  effects  of  neglect  of  mental  culture,  and  the  inculcation 
of  frivolous,  senile,  and  self-degrading  notions  into  the  minds 
of  the  mothers  of  humanity?  Oh  what  endears  the  Christian 
religion  to  my  heart  is  what  it  has  done,  and  is  destined  to  do, 
for  my  own  sex ;  and  that  which  excites  my  indignation  be- 
yond anything  else  is  to  hear  its  sacred  precepts  dragged  for- 
ward to  favour  degrading  arguments. 

Oh  for  a  few  more  Adam  Clarkes  to  dispel  the  ignorance  of 
the  Church,  then  should  we  not  hear  very  pigmies  in  Chris- 
tianity reasoning  against  holy  and  intelligent  women  opening 
their  mouths  for  the  Lord  in  the  presence  of  the  Church. 
Whenever  you  have  to  argue  with  such,  just  direct  them  to 
read  the  three  following  passages  and  Clarke's  comment  on 
the  two  first:  Exodus  15th  chapter,  20-22  verses;  Judges  ist 
chapter,  from  the  4th  verse ;  and  2nd  Chronicles  34th  chapter, 
from  the  21st  verse.  In  the  first  he  says  the  same  word  in 
the  original  is  used  in  reference  to  Moses  and  the  other 
prophets,  and  therefore  Miriam  was  as  truly  inspired;  and, 
that  she  was  chosen  and  constituted  joint  leader  of  the  people, 
we  have  the  express  Word  of  God  for  it  by  Micah,  4th  chap- 
ter, 4th  verse :  "  For  I  brought  thee  up  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt,  and  /  sent  before  thee  Moses,  Aaron,  and  Miriam." 
On  the  latter,  Clarke  says  that  Deborah  seems  to  have  been 
supreme  as  well  in  civil  matters  as  in  spiritual.  "  She  judged 
Israel  " —  the  same  term  as  is  used  to  denote  the  functions  of 
the  regular  judges  —  she  appointed  Barak  as  general  of  the 
armies,  as  well  as  declared  God's  will  to  him,  and  Barak  most 
unhesitatingly  recognized  her  authority.  But  read  carefully 
the  whole  account,  as  also  that  in  the  34th  chapter  of  2nd 
Chronicles,  and  say  whether  in  0^3;  respect  you  can  discover 
any  difference  between  the  exercise  of  the  prophetic  power,  or 
the  recognition  of  its  reality  and  force,  in  these  cases  and 
those  of  Isaiah  or  Jeremiah. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  there  are  no  less  than  six 
prophetesses  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testament,  one  of  whom 
was  unquestionably  judge  as  well  as  prophet.  And  these  are 
not  mentioned  in  a  way  which  would  lead  one  to  suppose  that 
the  inspired  writer  regarded  them  as  anything  very  extraordi- 
nary:  they  are  simply  introduced  to  our  notice  like  the  other 


248  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

prophets.  Now  God  having  o)icc  spoken  directly  by  zvoman, 
and  man  having  once  recognized  her  divine  commission,  and 
obeyed  it,  on  what  ground  is  Omnipotence  to  be  restricted,  or 
woman's  spiritual  labours  ignored?  Who  shall  dare  say  unto 
the  Lord  "What  doest  Thou?"  when  He  "pours  out  His 
Spirit  upon  His  handmaidens,"  or  when  it  is  poured  out,  shall 
I  render  it  null  with  impunity?  If  indeed  there  is  in  "  Christ 
Jesus  neither  male  nor  female,"  but  in  all  touching  His  king- 
dom "  they  are  one,"  who  shall  dare  thrust  woman  out  of  the 
Church's  operations,  or  presume  to  put  my  candle  which  God 
has  lighted  under  a  bushel  ?  Why  should  the  swaddling  bands 
of  blind  custom  which  in  Wesley's  days  were  so  triumphantly 
broken,  and  with  such  glorious  results  thrown  to  the  moles 
and  bats,  be  again  wrapped  round  the  female  disciples  of  the 
Lord,  as  if  the  natural,  and  in  some  cases,  distressing  timidity 
of  woman's  nature,  were  not  sufficient  barrier  to  her  obeying 
the  dictates  of  the  Spirit,  whenever  that  Spirit  calls  her  to  any 
public  testimony  for  her  Lord?  Oh,  it  is  cruel  for  the  Church 
to  foster  prejudice  so  unscriptural,  and  thus  make  the  path 
of  usefulness  the  path  of  untold  suffering.  Let  me  advise 
yon,  my  Love,  to  get  settled  views  on  this  subject  and  be  able 
to  render  a  reason  to  every  caviller,  and  then  fearlessly  incite 
all  whom  you  believe  the  Lord  has  fitted  to  help  you  in  your 
Master's  work,  male  or  female,  Christ  has  given  them  no 
single  talent  to  be  hid  in  a  napkin,  and  yet  oh  what  thousands 
are  wrapped  up  and  buried,  which  used  and  improved  would 
yield  "  some  thirty,  some  sixty,  yea  and  some  an  hundred 
fold."  If  God  has  given  her  the  ability,  why  should  not 
woman  persuade  the  vacillating,  instruct  and  console  the  peni- 
tent, and  pour  out  her  soul  in  prayer  for  sinners?  Will  the 
plea  of  bashfulness  or  custom  excuse  her  to  Him  who  has  put 
such  honour  upon  her,  as  to  deign  to  become  her  Son,  in  order 
to  redeem  her  race ;  will  these  pleas  excuse  her  to  Him  who 
last  at  the  cross  and  first  at  the  sepulchre  was  attended  by 
women  who  so  far  forgot  bashfulness  as  to  testify  their  love 
for  Him  before  a  taunting  rabble,  and  who  so  far  overcame 
custom  that  when  all  (even  fellow-disciples)  forsook  Him  and 
fled,  they  remained  faithful  to  the  last  and  even  then  lingered 
"  afar  off  "  loath  to  lose  sight  of  an  object  so  precious? 

Oh  blessed  Jesus !  He  is  indeed  "  the  woman's  conquering 
seed."  He  has  taken  the  bitterest  part  of  her  curse  '*  out  of 
the  way,  nailing  it  to  his  cross."  In  Him  she  rises  to  the 
dignity  of  her  nature.  In  Him  her  equality  with  her  earthly 
lord  is  realized,  for  "  in  Him  there  is  neither  male  nor  fe- 
male," and  while  the  outward  semblance  of  her  curse  remains, 
in  Hirn  it  is  nullified  by  love  being  made  the  law  of  marriage. 
"  Husbands  love  your  wives  as  Christ  loved  the  church,  and 
gave  Himself  for  it."     Who   shall   call   subjection  to  such  a 


XV]  MANY  TROUBLES  249 

husband  a  curse?  Truly  "  He  who  was  made  a  curse  for  us  " 
hath  beautifully  extracted  the  venom ;  for  what  wife  who 
loves  the  Lord  can  feel  it  a  burden  to  "  reverence  "  a  husband 
thus  like  Him?  —  and  glory  to  His  name,  while  His  death  did 
this,  and  His  precepts  are  so  tender  and  so  easy,  His  example 
is  no  less  endearing.  In  her  society  He  loved  to  spend  His 
hours  of  repose  and  holy  retirement  in  the  lovely  little  home 
at  Bethany.  To  her  at  the  roadside  well  He  made  His  only 
positive  avowal  of  His  Messiahship,  and  set  aside  the  tram- 
mels of  national  custom  to  talk  with  her.  For  her  He  made 
a  way  of  escape  from  her  merciless  though  no  less  guilty 
accusers,  and  while  sending  them  away  conscience  smitten, 
to  her  He  extended  His  tender  mercy,  "  neither  do  /  condemn 
thee :  go,  and  sin  no  more." 

He  never  slighted  her,  overlooked  her,  or  cast  a  more  severe 
construction  on  sin  in  her  than  in  man;  no,  He  treated  her  in 
all  respects  the  same.  His  las!;  aflfectionate  solicitude,  in  the 
midst  of  expiring  agonies,  was  exercised  for  her,  and,  oh,  best 
of  all,  His  rising  salutation,  the  first  view  of  His  glorified  body, 
that  pledge  of  His  victory  over  her  ancient  enemy,  was  given 
to  her  with  a  commission  to  go  and  publish  to  His  disciples, 
the  fact  of  His  resurrection.  Methinks  if  some  of  our  mod- 
ern quibblers  had  been  amongst  them,  they  would  have  hesi- 
tated to  receive  such  tidings  from  her;  but  not  so  Peter  and 
John,  they  ran  swiftly  at  her  word,  as  if  it  had  been  a  man's, 
and  "  stooping  down  and  looking  in "  realized  the  glorious 
truths.  Oh  that  many  Marys  may  yet  tell  of  His  wonderful 
salvation.  But  I  must  conclude.  I  had  no  idea  of  waiting 
so  much  when  I  began,  but  I  do  not  regret  it.  I  have  long 
wanted  to  put  my  thoughts  on  this  subject  on  paper,  and  I 
am  sure  thou  wilt  not  value  them  the  less  because  they  are  on 
such  a  subject.  I  have  not  written  so  much  to  thee  as  for 
thee,  I  want  thee  to  feel  as  I  do  if  you  canst;  but  if  not  be  as 
honest  in  thy  opinions  as  I  am,  and  I  will  honour  thee  for 
them. 

If  you  gain  anything  by  what  I  have  writ,  I  should  praise 
God  on  hearing  it,  otherwise  I  do  not  desire  you  to  anszver 
this.  I  have  written  it  in  much  weariness  and  I  should  be 
pleased  and  gratified  if  thou  wilt  give  it  a  serious  reading. 
Perhaps  sometime  with  thy  permission  (for  I  am  going  to 
promise  to  obey  thee  before  I  have  any  intention  of  entering 
on  such  work)  I  may  write  something  more  extensive  on  this 
subject,  and  on  reading  over  this  letter  I  perceive  it  would 
under  such  circumstances  be  a  help  to  me;  therefore  I  desire 
thee  to  take  special  care  of  it,  for  I  can  only  write  thus  in  cer- 
tain frames  of  mind.  Bless  you,  I  know  you  will  give  credit 
for  true  patriotism,  for  you  know  nothing  I  have  said  is  to  be 
interpreted  personally.     Alas !     I  feel  that  /  am  far  inferior  to 


250        THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap,  xv] 

many  of  my  own  sex,  and  therefore  am  the  last  to  claim 
superiority,  but  such  as  I  am  I  am  thine  in  love's  own  bonds, 

Catherine. 

I  have  "  written  it  for  a  memorial  in  a  letter  "  instead  of  a 
book. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

MARRIAGE,    HONEYMOON,    AND   THE    THEOLOGY    OF 
REVIVALISM 

1855 

On  the  i6th  June,  1855,  William  Booth  and  Catherine 
Mum  ford,  both  of  them  being  twenty-six  years  of  age,  were 
married  by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  at  the  Stockwell  New 
Chapel  in  South  London.  Mr.  Mumford  was  present  at 
this  wedding  and  one  of  William  Booth's  sisters.  No 
other  minister  assisted  Dr.  Thomas,  and  there  was  no  con- 
gregation. 

The  honeymoon  was  spent  at  Ryde,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
the  bride  and  bridegroom  occupying  those  comfortable 
lodgings  of  which  William  Booth  had  heard  a  good  account 
in  the  north  of  England.  One  week  was  devoted  to  this 
delicate  foundation  of  married  life,  and  then  the  Reverend 
and  Airs.  William  Booth,  of  the  Methodist  New  Connexion, 
started  ofT  for  a  religious  campaign  in  Guernsey. 

It  is  time  to  say  that  these  revivals,  into  which  the 
Booths  threw  themselves  with  an  enthusiasm  scarcely  to 
be  matched  by  the  earliest  Christians,  rose  out  of  a  theo- 
logical ground  which  was  then  universally  accepted  by  the 
Church.  Whether  we  may  think  that  ground  narrow  or 
false,  it  was  the  foundational  theology  of  the  period  —  a 
ground,  moreover,  which  no  man  could  even  reverently 
criticize  without  the  startling  consequence  of  finding  himself 
numbered  among  the  infidels.  The  Booths,  standing  on 
this  acknowledged  ground,  were  perfectly  logical  in  their 
action ;  those  who  stood  on  the  same  ground,  and  yet 
contented  themselves  with  a  tepid  discharge  of  formal  duties, 
were  guilty  of  the  disastrous  offence  which  English  people 
are  most  ready  to  forgive,  namely,  an  incredible  lack  of 
imagination. 

WHiat  was  this  theological  ground  universally  acknowl- 
edged by  the  Church?     One  can  state  it  so  mildly  that  it 


252  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

may  be  accepted  by  the  great  body  of  orthodox  Christians 
even  at  this  day ;  it  can  be  stated  with  such  brutal  reaHsm 
as  might  have  startled  even  the  flaming  spirits  of  William 
and  Catherine  Booth  fifty  years  ago. 

In  its  mildest  form  this  theology  taught  that  entrance 
into  Heaven  could  only  be  secured  by  faith  in  the  Redemp- 
tion of  Christ ;  that  man  was  so  inherently  corrupt  in  his 
nature  that  without  the  help  of  Almighty  God  he  could  do 
nothing  to  please  Him :  and  that  until  he  bowed  his  sinful 
will  to  the  Divine  Will,  acknowledging  Christ  as  his  Saviour 
and  Redeemer,  he  stood  in  dreadful  peril  of  eternal  damna- 
tion. In  its  more  dogmatic  form  this  theology  taught  that 
every  human  creature  born  into  the  world  was  under  sentence 
of  death,  and  that  condemnation  and  wrath  awaited  those 
who  refused  to  acknowledge  the  death  of  Christ  as  at  once  a 
consequence  of  their  own  personal  guilt  and  an  atonement 
for  the  sins  of  the  whole  world.  Hell  was  indubitably 
regarded  as  the  certain  portion  of  all  sinners,  the  just 
portion,  indeed,  of  all  who  rejected  Christ;  and  Hell 
was,  also  indubitably,  pictured  as  a  region  of  unspeakable 
misery  which  would  endure  for  everlasting. 

It  must  strike  every  honest  mind  that  a  man  who 
entertained  this  theology  and  truthfully  believed  its  impli- 
cations must  have  had  a  heart  of  stone  or  a  quite  dead 
imagination  to  go  quietly,  peacefully,  and  contentedly 
about  his  business.  To  eat  a  meal  when  thousands  were 
slipping  into  eternal  Hell  only,  a  few  yards  from  the  table ; 
to  go  happily  to  rest  when  thousands  more  were  hurling 
themselves  over  the  brink  into  those  undying  flames  within 
a  walk  of  one's  comfortable  bed;  to  stand  at  the  reading 
desk  or  to  mount  the  pulpit  stairs  with  a  written  sermon 
in  one's  cassock-pocket,  while  thousands  upon  thousands  of 
people  remained  outside  the  church  doors  satisfied  with 
their  sins,  blackened  with  iniquity,  and  condemned  to  an 
unending  agony  of  irremediable  remorse  —  surely  this  was 
to  be  illogical,  incomprehensible,  utterly  unimaginative, 
dead  to  every  vestige  of  feeling. 

Far  more  logical  was  the  action  of  revivalists.  They 
not  only  professed  the  accepted  theology  of  Christendom, 
but  they  lived  their  lives  as  if  it  were  the  veritable  truth 


XVI]  REVIVAL  THEOLOGY  253 

of  the  universe.  They  fought  Satan  as  if  they  saw  him 
face  to  face;  they  struggled  to  drag  the  souls  of  men  from 
the  edge  of  eternal  torment;  they  seized  the  shoulders 
of  the  sleepers  and  bade  them  wake  and  be  saved ;  they 
could  not  rest,  nor  find  lasting  pleasure  in  life,  while  thou- 
sands of  their  fellow-creatures  were  sinking  into  everlast- 
ing ruin  ignorant  of  the  means  of  obtaining  everlasting 
felicity;  their  whole  existence  was  an  agony  to  rouse  the 
torpid  souls  of  a  perishing  world. 

There  is  really  nothing  to  excuse  in  the  fervour  and  in- 
citements of  such  men  as  William  Booth  if  we  remember 
their  honest  convictions.  On  the  other  hand,  the  frigid 
and  decorous  lives  of  their  orthodox  contemporaries,  if  we 
consider  their  theological  foundation,  demand  an  apology 
so  subtle  and  tortuous  that  it  might  baffle  even  the  cunning 
of  a  Newman  to  give  it  any  form  of  expression  short  of 
the  grotesque. 

Sydney  Smith's  essay  on  "  Methodism,"  which  diverted 
readers  of  Tlie  Edinburgh  Rezncw  and  gave  an  elabo- 
rate satisfaction  to  the  erudite  Establishment,  makes  no 
mention  whatever  of  this  foundational  teaching  of  the 
Church.  "  The  Methodists,"  he  said,  "  are  always  desirous 
of  making  men  more  religious  than  it  is  possible,  from  the 
constitution  of  human  nature,  to  make  them."  Whether 
he  ever  preached  a  sermon  from  the  text.  "  Blessed  are 
they  which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness ;  for 
they  shall  he  filled,"  or  from  the  injunction,  "  Be  ye  there- 
fore perfect,  even  as  your  Father  which  is  in  Heaven  is 
perfect,"  we  do  not  know  and  are  not  greatly  concerned 
to  discover ;  but  much  would  we  give  and  to  great  pains 
would  we  most  willingly  put  ourselves  to  ascertain  the  pre- 
cise condition  of  the  delightful  and  witty  Canon's  state  of 
mind  when  reciting  at  public  worship  those  pronouncements 
of  the  Church  which  declare  the  everlasting  damnation  of 
the  wicked. 

But  the  only  serious  question  for  the  reader  of  this 
history  concerns  the  honesty  of  the  Booths.  Did  they 
really  believe  what  they  taught?  Did  they  conscientiously 
and  implicitly  hold  as  the  very  truth  of  existence  that 
escape   from   Hell  could   only  be   secured   by   faith   in   the 


254  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Atonement  of  Christ?  Were  they  passionate  and  whole- 
hearted seekers  of  the  lost,  burningly,  unselfishly  set  upon 
the  saving  of  souls,  truthfully  convinced  that  they  held 
the  commission  of  Christ;  or  were  they  merely  the  mounte- 
banks of  religious  history,  charlatans  out  for  gain  and  no- 
toriety, detestable  hypocrites  teaching  what  they  did  not  be- 
lieve, living  clean  contrary  to  their  profession,  laughing  up 
their  sleeves  in  secret  at  the  victims  of  their  cleverness? 
"  We  are  for  common  sense  orthodoxy,"  said  Sydney  Smith. 
What,  then,  were  the  Booths  for?  —  what  was  their  share, 
if  any,  in  this  rare  conjunction  of  common  sense  and  ortho- 
dox religion? 

The  letters  which  have  appeared  in  previous  chapters 
entirely  answer  any  reasonable  question  on  the  head  of 
honesty.  No  unprejudiced  person  can  read  those  remark- 
able letters  without  convincing  himself  that  perhaps  truer 
and  more  honest  souls  never  lived  than  this  obscure 
Methodist  preacher  and  the  woman  who  shared  the  burden 
of  his  vocation.  It  would  be  impossible  for  any  man  how- 
ever malicious  to  prove  them  dishonest.  Honest  they  were 
in  heart  and  soul,  too  honest  for  their  peace  and  com- 
fort, too  honest  for  their  worldly  prosperity.  But,  a  more 
difficult  question  remains  to  be  answered.  One  asks 
whether  William  Booth,  William  Booth  particularly  — 
William  Booth  with  his  shrewd  common  sense  and  his  ob- 
stinate self-questionings,  his  doubts  and  scepticisms  even 
in  the  midst  of  the  religious  excitation  which  he  himself 
had  brought  about  —  whether  he  had  honourably  assured 
himself  that  what  he  proclaimed  so  loudly  and  so  con- 
vincingly from  the  platform  expressed  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  of  God's  relation  with 
humanity? 

The  easiest  answer  to  this  question  is  supplied  in  letters 
written  by  the  man  himself  in  later  life.  He  acknowledged 
that  his  outlook  at  this  time  was  narrow ;  he  confessed  that 
he  was  guilty  of  ignorance  and  of  inexperience.  But  by 
this  he  did  not  mean  that  he  ever  wished  his  early  work 
undone,  or  that  he  had  deceived  himself  in  the  doing  of  it; 
he  meant  that  he  had  circumscribed  his  labours  to  religious 
circles;  that  he  had  not  realized  the  immense  part  played 


XVI]  REVIVAL  THEOLOGY  255 

in  human  tragedy  by  ignorance  and  poverty  and  pardonable 
frailty ;  that  he  had  not  sounded  so  deeply  as  he  came  to 
sound  with  larger  experience  the  boundless  charity  of  God. 
He  was  a  man,  as  we  can  never  tire  of  emphasizing,  whose 
mind  developed  and  whose  character  ripened  to  the  very 
last.  He  was  always  in  the  act  of  growth.  Therefore, 
without  personal  bias  of  any  kind,  with  an  actual  distaste 
for  the  violence  and  excesses  of  revivalism,  one  must  actjuit 
him  of  any  degree  of  self-deception  or  any  inclination  to 
shirk  the  ordeal  of  a  searching  analysis  of  his  beliefs.  He 
believed,  as  his  letters  overwhelmingly  prove,  that  any 
temptation  to  desist  from  seeking  the  instant  salvation  of  his 
fellows,  any  inclination  to  modify  his  methods,  any  whisper- 
ing doubt  as  to  his  future,  his  health,  or  his  happiness,  came 
from  the  enemy  of  his  soul.  Faith  in  Satan  was  tremen- 
dously real  to  him.  He  felt  himself  called  by  God ;  he  knew 
himself  tempted  in  a  hundred  directions  from  a  perfectly 
pure  response  to  that  call ;  and  those  doubts  and  question- 
ings, which  his  intellectual  power  was  unable  to  face  and 
answer,  he  ascribed,  naturally  and  logically,  to  the  forces 
of  evil. 

I  believe  him  to  have  been  as  honest  a  man  as  ever 
found  himself  governed  by  a  religious  conscience.  I  be- 
lieve him  to  have  been  a  man  who  made  mistakes,  who 
was  perhaps  ignorant,  v/ho  was  often  thoughtless,  and  who 
was  too  easily  satisfied  that  the  Devil  whispered  every 
objection  that  rose  from  the  depths  to  the  surface  of  his 
consciousness ;  further,  I  believe  that  he  accustomed  himself 
to  employ  in  the  service  of  righteousness  methods  for  which 
his  taste,  if  definitely  challenged  in  later  years,  would  have 
expressed  no  approval,  and  of  which  his  intellect,  patiently 
summoned  to  give  judgment,  would  have  offered  a  settled 
condemnation ;  but  I  am  convinced  that  from  the  very  first 
to  the  very  last  the  man's  soul  was  wholesome  and  true, 
that  he  acted  from  an  absolute  purity  of  motive,  that  he 
was  as  selfless  as  any  man  in  modern  conditions  of  life  can 
ever  hope  to  be  in  seeking  the  welfare  and  the  salvation  of 
his  fellow-creatures. 

Revivalism  can  be  presented  to  the  judgment  of  men  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  inspire  only  disgust  and  horror.     Even 


256  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

when  fairly  and  justly  presented  it  makes  no  powerful 
appeal  to  contemporary  imagination.  Mankind  has  passed 
away  from  the  ancient  thesis  of  a  distant  and  an  angered 
God;  theology,  except  in  Rome,  has  ranged  itself  with 
science  and  philosophy  in  a  search  for  the  truth  of  life; 
Christology  has  created  in  the  wistful  heart  of  multitudes  an 
infinitely  more  beautiful  idea  of  the  Incarnation;  men  now 
deeply,  hopefully,  and  quietly  believe  that  the  Spirit  of  God 
is  associated  with  humanity  in  an  evolution  of  being  which 
goes  from  transcendence  to  transcendence  in  an  infinite  cir- 
cle of  increasing  existence;  but  with  this  newer  and  en- 
larged theology,  with  this  deeper  and  therefore  more  bound- 
less faith,  who  that  widely  knows  the  world  can  truthfully 
say  that  even  now  the  hour  of  revivalism  is  past,  that  the 
cry  to  the  multitude.  Awake  out  of  sleep,  is  not  still  as 
urgent  and  as  divinely  inspired  as  it  was  in  the  earliest  days 
of  William  and  Catherine  Booth? 

This  history  will  show,  I  think,  that  the  revivalism  of 
the  Booths  in  its  first  manifestations  was  at  least  justified 
by  the  state  of  theological  knowledge,  and  that  in  its  later 
and  more  humane  activities  it  was,  is  still,  and  is  likely 
for  many  more  years  yet  to  be,  entirely  justified  by  the 
condition  of  human  society. 

I  shall  not  weary  the  reader  with  a  laborious  chronicle 
of  their  early  revivals ;  my  purpose  is  to  show,  so  far  as 
their  own  letters  will  supply  the  evidence,  the  human  side 
of  these  revivalists  and  the  many  difficulties  of  their  social 
history.  I  am  more  anxious  to  make  their  personalities 
real  and  intimate  to  posterity  than  to  establish  the  successes, 
great  or  small,  which  accompanied  their  progress  through 
the  cities  of  England.  The  work  by  which  they  will  be 
known  down  the  centuries  is  not  the  work  of  their  early 
revivalism,  but  the  establishment  of  the  Salvation  Army  — 
and  that  alone  is  an  organization  whose  activity  covers 
so  vast  an  area  of  the  earth's  surface  that  many  volumes 
would  scarcely  suffice  to  relate  its  history. 

My  purpose,  then,  is  to  supply  in  this  place  as  faithful  a 
portrait  as  my  materials  and  my  powers  will  permit  of  the 
man  who  came  through  Methodism  and  through  itinerant 
revivalism  to  the   founding  of   an   entirelj'  new   body   of 


xvi]  REVIVAL  THEOLOGY  257 

Christians,  a  body  of  Christians  whose  influence  has  already- 
left  a  permanent  impression  upon  all  the  Churches  and 
nearly  all  the  domestic  politics  of  the  world.  I  shall  use  the 
history  of  the  early  revivalism  only  so  far  as  it  subserves  this 
chief  purpose,  so  far  as  it  helps  us  to  see,  to  hear,  and  to 
know  the  man  William  Booth.  It  is  more  necessary  to 
understand  the  spirit  of  that  revivalism,  to  understand  it, 
and  to  sympathize  with  it  in  the  manner  we  have  already 
suggested,  than  to  learn  that  such  a  town  was  visited  in  such 
a  year,  and  that  in  the  prayer-meeting  so  many  came  to  the 
penitent  form,  and  so  many  were  "  good  cases."  The  con- 
temporary reader,  I  think,  will  thank  me  for  sparing  him 
all  such  troublesome  details,  and  certainly  the  only  judg- 
ment that  posterity  will  pass  upon  this  book  will  concern 
the  vigour  of  the  portrait  it  attempts  to  paint  of  a  man 
whose  character  will  be  of  curious  attraction  as  long  as  the 
world  is  interested  in  the  history  of  religion. 

The  revivalism  of  William  Booth  proceeded  from  the 
depths  of  his  own  soul  as  well  as  from  his  theological  con- 
victions. He  was  a  man  sharply  conscious  of  his  own 
faults,  plagued  by  temptations  of  body  and  mind,  the  un- 
happy victim  of  a  morbid  infirmity.  So  far  as  the  current 
theology  confirmed  his  settled  opinion  that  every  ill  wish 
which  visited  his  mind  came  from  Satan,  the  adversary  of 
souls,  so  far  theology  influenced  his  conduct.  But  it  was 
really  this  presence  in  himself,  this  continual  companionship, 
of  a  nature  inferior  to  that  higher  nature  of  which  he  was 
conscious  in  moods  of  religious  exaltation;  the  perpetual 
haunting,  the  unlifting  pressure  of  an  evil  spirit  antago- 
nistic to  his  peace ;  the  breath  upon  his  cheek,  the  whisper 
in  his  ear,  the  guidance  at  his  elbow,  the  flame  and  fire 
perpetually  within  his  blood  of  a  demon  plotting  the  eternal 
ruin  of  his  soul  —  it  was  this  root  of  evil  in  himself,  and 
not  theology,  which  drove  him  first  upon  his  knees  and 
then  into  the  streets  as  a  preacher  of  salvation. 

Nothing  was  more  certain  to  him  than  the  existence  of 
Satan  —  the  proof  thereof  tortured  his  own  heart.  So  evil 
did  he  feel  himself  to  be  that  his  thought  was  not  in  the 
least  staggered  by  the  punishment  of  eternal  Hell.  So 
profoundly  conscious  was  he  in  moments  of  religious  peace 


258  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  a  relief  from  this  inner  torment  that  he  could  believe 
it  came  only  from  the  mercy  of  God,  a  gift  of  the  Son  who 
had  died  to  save  his  soul  from  death.  Thus,  so  far  as 
theology  confirmed  his  experience,  he  was  a  theologian; 
but  it  was  out  of  his  own  travail  of  soul  that  he  fashioned 
his  religion ;  and  religion  for  him,  from  first  to  last,  was  a 
matter  of  the  most  personal  and  piercing  experience.  He 
feared  and  hated  the  Devil;  he  adored  the  Son  of  God, 
who  had  given  him  the  victory  over  sin.  Saturated  through 
and  through,  penetrated  and  interpenetrated  by  this  sense 
of  an  overwhelming  gratitude  to  Christ;  conscious,  also, 
in  himself  of  the  most  pervasive  and  sufficing  happiness  in 
his  union  with  God,  what  could  he  do  but  go  to  those  in 
darkness  and  ignorance,  proclaiming  with  a  vociferation, 
never  mind  how  loud  and  alarming,  the  good  news  of  a 
free  and  perfect  salvation? 

In  an  account  he  has  given  us  of  one  of  his  earliest 
sermons  —  that  under  which  the  daughter  of  his  tutor,  Dr. 
Cooke,  was  converted  —  we  see  with  perfect  clearness  the 
simple  character  of  his  theology  at  this  time  —  he  was 
then  2.2  —  and  also  the  driving  force  of  personal  experience 
at  the  back  of  his  preaching: 

I  described  a  wreck  on  the  ocean,  with  the  affrighted  people 
clinging  to  the  masts  between  life  and  death,  waving  a  flag  of 
distress  to  those  on  shore,  and,  in  response,  the  life-boat  going 
off  to  the  rescue.  ...  I  reminded  my  hearers  that  they  had 
suffered  shipwreck  on  the  ocean  of  time  through  their  sins  and 
rebellion ;  that  they  were  sinking  down  to  destruction,  but 
that  if  they  would  only  hoist  the  signal  of  distress  Jesus  Christ 
would  send  off  the  life-boat  to  their  rescue.  Then,  jumping  on 
the  seat  at  the  back  of  the  pulpit,  I  waved  my  pocket-handker- 
chief round  and  round  my  head  to  represent  the  signal  of  dis- 
tress I  wanted  them  to  hoist. 

One's  first  instinct  is  to  shudder.  Without  being  super- 
cilious or  hypersensitive  one  may  justly  shrink  from  the 
contemplation  of  this  violent  preacher  with  his  waving 
handkerchief.  But  to  be  perfectly  just,  one  must  ask 
whether  the  current  theology,  the  theology  everywhere  ac- 
cepted, proclaimed,  and  even  used  as  a  menace  to  man- 
kind, did  not  vindicate  that  leap  to  the  seat  at  the  back 
of  the  pulpit,  did  not  justify  the  waving  of  that  pocket- 


XVI]  REVIVAL  THEOLOGY  259 

handkerchief  round  the  preacher's  head?  Is  it  true  that 
milHons  of  souls  are  shipwrecked,  are  sinking  down  to 
destruction  —  everlasting  destruction?  Is  it  true  that  they 
have  only  to  cry  to  the  Saviour  of  the  world  to  be  lifted 
out  of  the  dark  waters?  Most  important  of  all,  is  it  true 
that  unless  they  do  so  call  for  mercy  and  forgiveness,  the 
undying  worm  and  the  unquenchable  flame  will  feed  upon 
their  tortured  souls  for  evermore?  If  this  be  so,  if  this 
is  indeed  the  teaching  of  the  Church,  can  any  method  be 
indecorous,  any  tone  too  strident,  any  gesture  too  violent, 
any  antic  too  shocking  and  startling,  that  rouses  even  one 
perishing  soul  to  escape  a  calamity  so  unthinkable  as  re- 
morse and  agony  prolonged  throughout  the  ages  of  eternity? 
Again,  one  must  in  fairness  contend  that  the  perfectly 
polite  and  unruffled  seemliness  of  the  orthodox,  who  cherish 
this  theology  as  the  truth  of  God,  is  a  matter  not  only  inde- 
fensible to  casuistry  but  repellent  to  the  most  primitive  in- 
stincts of  humanity. 

This  sermon  of  the  waving  handkerchief  is  important 
because  it  helps  one  to  understand  the  crude  theology  of 
William  Booth  at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  and  to  see 
how  real  was  the  experience  from  which  he  drew  this  violent 
illustration.  He  clearly  held  that  every  soul  born  into 
human  life  was  in  peril  of  everlasting  destruction;  he  be- 
lieved that  every  living  soul,  by  its  sins  and  rebellion, 
merited  destruction;  that  destruction  must  infallibly  be  its 
lot  but  for  the  Atonement  of  Christ;  and  there  his  theology 
ended  and  his  humanity  began.  No  intellectual  test  was 
asked,  no  adherence  was  demanded  to  a  string  of  self- 
contradicting  formulae ;  all  that  was  needed  even  of  the  very 
worst  was  a  cry  from  the  heart  of  their  own  helplessness  for 
the  mercy  and  forgiveness  of  an  Infinite  Christ.  But  there 
was  something  more,  he  tested  the  reality  of  that  cry.  He 
did  not  tell  these  troubled  and  affrighted  souls  that  they  had 
only  to  give  up  their  sins,  join  a  church,  and  go  regularly 
to  the  public  worship  of  God  in  order  to  be  certain  of  an 
angel's  destiny  in  Paradise;  he  told  them  that  they  must 
be  born  again;  that  they  themselves  at  the  very  centre  of 
their  being  must  suffer  a  will  change  so  utter,  a  transforma- 
tion so  complete,  a  conversion  so  unerring,  that  the  very 


26o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

face  of  life  should  appear  to  them  for  evermore  altered  and 
transfigured.  The  cry  was  their  part  —  and  they  could  do 
no  more  than  cry;  the  change  was  the  miracle  of  God.  If 
their  cry  came  very  truly  from  the  grief  of  a  broken  heart, 
from  the  bitter  knowledge  that  of  themselves  they  could 
do  nothing  to  save  themselves  from  judgment  and  destruc- 
tion; then,  of  a  surety,  the  miracle  would  descend  swiftly  to 
their  relief.  From  the  very  first  he  preached  this  essential 
need  of  conversion,  and  never  once  did  he  make  the  forgive- 
ness of  God  to  depend  either  upon  the  easiness  of  a  life  of 
repentance  or  the  difficulty  of  a  theological  proposition. 
He  made  it  hard  for  the  sinner,  but  only  hard  for  his  heart 
where  it  was  a  greater  hardness  that  alone  stood  in  the  way 
of  divine  mercy. 

This  theology  of  William  Booth  was  not  greatly  modified 
by  experience;  in  later  life,  with  a  knowledge  of  the  human 
heart  probably  unrivalled,  he  saw  the  same  teaching  of 
this  old  theology  with  an  infinitely  wider  vision ;  but  it 
must  be  confessed  that  he  remained  to  the  very  end  of 
his  days  a  most  intractable  Philistine  as  regards  the  entire 
region  of  the  intellect.  What  was  merely  a  loose  intuition 
in  this  respect  during  youth  became  in  age  a  settled  con- 
viction. He  detested  the  arrogance  of  dogmatic  science. 
In  the  impatience  of  his  sorrow  for  the  oppressed  he  con- 
sidered literature  and  the  fine  arts  as  the  mere  playthings 
of  a  childish  humanity.  He  turned  his  back  on  philosophy, 
as  being  often  a  trick  of  the  Devil  to  catch  mankind  with 
the  delusions  of  the  reason.  He  was  born  a  provincial, 
and  he  remained  a  provincial.  He  was  not  born  a  Hebraist, 
but  he  made  himself  the  most  uncompromising  Hebraist  of 
his  time.  He  must  always  be  judged  as  a  man  who,  for 
the  sake  of  Christ,  denied  his  period  and  lived  without  en- 
thusiasm for  human  inquiry. 

When  we  consider  these  things,  remembering  at  the 
same  time  that  he  held  the  generally  accepted  theology  of 
his  day,  we  shall  more  easily  sympathize  with  the  spirit 
of  his  revivalism.  He  knew  little  or  nothing  of  textual 
criticism,  nothing  of  historical  criticism,  nothing  of  German 
theology;  nothing  of  psychology,  nothing  of  philosophy, 
nothing  of  physical  science.     Fie  knew  nothing  of  archi- 


XVI]  REVIVAL  THEOLOGY  261 

tecture,  nothing  of  painting-,  and  nothing  of  classical  music. 
Furthermore,  at  this  period  of  his  career  he  knew  very 
little  indeed  of  life;  was  acquainted,  indeed,  only  with  the 
dissenting  aspect  of  the  commonwealth,  was  in  touch  only 
with  the  outermost  suburbs  of  human  society.  When  he 
married  Catherine  Mumford  he  was  an  ill-educated  pastor 
of  a  section  of  the  Methodist  body,  a  man  only  remarkable 
for  the  intensity  of  his  feelings,  the  honesty  of  his  nature, 
and  the  power  of  his  oratory.  But  the  reader  of  his  let- 
ters must  already  have  perceived  that  while  he  was  this, 
and  while  on  the  surface  he  was  nothing  more,  there  was 
in  the  depths  of  his  rough,  wilful,  and  untutored  being  a 
gnawing  hunger  and  a  consuming  thirst  for  sanctification, 
a  great  struggle  for  spiritual  perfection,  and  a  dogged, 
obstinate,  unconquerable  passion  to  do  the  will  of  God 
against  the  obstruction  of  Hell  itself. 

Again  and  again  throughout  his  letters  there  is  the 
same  foreshadowing  of  an  ultimate  immortality  that  exists, 
calmly  and  quietly,  in  the  most  perfect  and  imperishable 
of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  —  a  cry,  as  it  were,  from  the  dark 
blackness  of  a  soul  overshadowed  by  the  powers  of  evil  and 
wretched  with  poverty,  ignorance,  and  a  will  pulling  con- 
trary to  the  divine,  a  cry  that  somewhere,  somehow,  and 
somewhen  he  will  veritably  strike  an  immortal  blow  for  God 
and  his  fellow-men.  It  is  this  conviction  of  a  destiny,  this 
heroic  faith  in  a  high  calling  on  the  part  of  a  man  hampered 
by  physical  weakness  and  hindered  on  every  hand  by  au- 
thority and  indifference,  which  most  interests  us  in  William 
Booth  as  a  revivalist,  helping  us  to  maintain  our  sympathy, 
and  to  expect  a  greater  man.  First  to  his  youthful  friends 
in  Nottingham,  and  afterwards  with  a  much  greater  in- 
tensity and  a  far  more  persistent  reiteration  to  Catherine 
Mumford,  he  confided  this  feeling  within  himself  of  a  power 
to  do  something  for  the  salvation  of  man  which  should  add 
fresh  glory  to  religion.  His  friends  believed  in  him,  and 
Catherine  Mumford.  warning  him  against  ambition,  be- 
lieved in  him  too.  After  long  years  of  wandering  in  the 
wilderness  he  was  to  enter  the  promised  land  and  to  justify 
this  faith  in  his  destiny. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    HAPPINESS    OF    A    YOUNG    MARRIED    COUPLE 
1855-1856 

So  great  had  been  the  success  of  WilHam  Booth's  various 
missions  that  the  Annual  Conference  of  the  New  Connexion, 
which  was  held  a  little  time  before  his  marriage,  freed  him 
from  his  circuit  in  London,  and  appointed  him  to  the  work 
of  roving  evangelist,  "  to  give  the  various  circuits  an  op- 
portunity of  having  his  services  during  the  coming  year." 

In  this  way  the  young  married  couple  were  destined  to 
spend  some  considerable  time  of  their  life  without  the 
comfort  and  convenience  of  a  home.  As  early  as  August 
in  that  year  of  1855  —  owing  chiefly  to  Catherine's  illness 
—  they  were  separated,  William  Booth  writing  from  York 
to  his  "precious  wife,"  who  was  with  her  parents  in  Lon- 
don: "  I  feel  as  though  a  part  of  myself  were  wanting," 
he  says  to  her;  adding,  "How  often  during  my  journey 
have  I  taken  my  eyes  from  off  the  book  I  was  reading  to 
think  about  you  —  yes,  to  think  tenderly  about  you,  about 
our  future  and  our  home." 

Catherine  felt  this  parting  keenly,  and  tells  him  how  it 
was  almost  intolerable,  so  that  she  even  had  thoughts  of 
starting  off,  in  spite  of  her  illness,  to  join  him  again: 

.  ,  .  the  fact  of  your  being  goiie  beyond  my  reach,  the  possi- 
bility of  something  happening  before  we  could  meet  again,  the 
possible  shortness  of  the  time  we  may  have  to  spend  together, 
and  such  like  thoughts,  would  start  up,  making  rebellious  na- 
ture rise  and  swell  and  scorn  all  restraints  of  reason,  phi- 
losophy, or  religion. 

She  signs  herself  on  this  occasion,  "  Remember  me  al- 
ways as  your  own  faithful,  loving,  joyful  little  wife." 

When  they  met  again,  Catherine  wrote  to  her  parents 
describing  her  happiness,  and  exclaiming,  "  He  is  kinder 
and  more  tender  than  ever,  and  is  very,  very  glad  I  came. 
Bless  him !     He  is  worth  a  bushel  of  the  ordinary  sort." 

262 


[cHAP.xviij  YOUNG  MARRIED  LIFE  263 

Tender  as  he  was,  and  full  of  sympathy  for  her  con- 
tinued suffering,  William  Booth  could  not  drag  himself 
from  his  work  to  nurse  his  sick  wife.  Very  soon  after  this 
reunion  they  were  parted  again,  she  remaining  at  Hull  and 
he  going  to  Caistor  as  an  evangelist.  Her  letters  to  her 
parents  furnish  a  second-hand  report  of  his  triumphs  and 
declare  the  sorrows  of  her  heart  in  this  enforced  loneliness.- 
"  I  would  not  be  a  voluntary  exile  from  my  beloved  hus- 
band, even  for  a  week." 

We  are  to  have  apartments  at  Sheffield.  You  cannot  think 
with  what  joy  I  anticipate  being  to  ourselves  once  more.  .  .  . 
For  though  I  get  literally  oppressed  with  kindness,  I  must  say 
I  would  prefer  a  home,  where  we  could  sit  down  together  at 
our  own  little  table,  myself  the  mistress  and  my  husband 
the  only  guest.  .  .  .  My  precious  William  is  all  I  desire,  and 
without  this  what  would  the  most  splendid  home  be  but  a 
ghttering  bauble?  Then,  too,  by  living  in  different  families 
and  places,  I  have  much  room  for  observation  and  reflection 
on  various  phases  of  life  and  character  which  I  hope  will  bene- 
fit my  mind  and  increase  my  knowledge.  .  .  . 

A  reference  to  her  father,  which  follows,  needs  the  par- 
enthetical explanation  that  Mr.  Mumford  was  suffering 
commercial  reverses,  and  that  with  these  financial  anxieties 
he  was  once  more  sinking  into  a  condition  of  indifference  to 
religion  —  the  ex-lay  preacher  crushed  quite  out  of  existence 
by  the  pressing  failure  of  the  coach-builder: 

Tell  father  that  he  must  not  wait  for  a  change  of  circwn- 
stauccs  before  he  begins  to  serve  God,  but  seek  first  the  King- 
dom of  Heaven.  ...  I  wish  he  could  be  introduced  into  such 
a  revival  as  that  at  Hull.  God  is  doing  great  and  marvellous 
things  there. 

He  is  bringing  to  Flis  fold 

Rich  and  poor  and  young  and  old. 

Out  of  his  scanty  earnings  William  Booth,  the  impulsive 
and  headlong  evangelist,  found  means  to  help  his  im- 
pecunious father-in-law.  "  Herewith,"  he  wrote  from 
Sheffield,  in  September,  1855,  "you  have  P.O.  for  two 
pounds,  made  payable  to  John  Mumford,  at  the  General 
Post  Office."  He  is  evidently  looking  about  him  for  some 
chance  of  helping  this  unfortunate  father-in-law  to  make 


264  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

a  fresh  start.  "  I  am  anxious  you  should  keep  your  spirits 
and  make  an  effort  by  and  by.  I  think  that  a  large  town 
something  like  Sheffield  would  be  better  than  the  Potteries, 
but  perhaps  I  am  not  the  best  judge."  He  expresses  him- 
self as  confident  of  Mr.  Mumford's  "  ability  and  success  " 
if  once  he  could  get  a  fair  start.  On  the  same  sheet  Cath- 
erine writes  to  her  father: 

I  quite  agree  with  you  in  thinking  yourself  well  adapted  for 
an  Auctioneer,  and  I  have  faith  to  believe  you  will  yet  get  into 
business  and  do  well;  keep  your  spirits  up  and  don't  conclude 
that  because  you  cannot  get  away  just  now  you  must  neces- 
sarily stay  where  you  are  all  the  Winter.  ...  I  hope  the  en- 
closed order  will  be  sufficient ;  we  intended  sending  another 
pound,  but  William  has  not  written  to  the  Committee  for 
money,  and  he  runs  rather  short  just  now ;  but  if  you  ivant 
more,  send  word,  as  he  can  write  in  a  couple  of  days  and  will 
with  pleasure  send  you  some. 

After  a  reference  to  her  husband's  success,  telling  how 
his  name  is  "  posted  on  the  walls  in  monster  bills,"  she 
addresses  herself  to  her  mother: 

I  often  wish  I  could  come  and  see  you.  I  should  like  to 
have  a  little  private  conversation,  my  beloved  mother.  I  am 
very  sorry  you  have  been  so  unfortunate  in  your  search  after 
apartments ;  nevertheless,  I  think  there  is  a  kind  providence 
watching  over  you,  and  I  believe  all  will  turn  out  right  in  the 
end.  Don't  be  harassed  about  the  rent ;  when  you  have  done 
what  you  can,  I  am  sure  William  will  help  you  out ;  he  feels 
more  with  you  and  manifests  more  interest  in  your  welfare 
than  ever  I  expected  he  would ;  but  it  is  only  one  of  the  many 
things  in  which  he  has  exceeded  my  expectation.  Bless  him, 
I  have  only  one  fear,  and  that  is  that  he  will  wear  himself  out 
prematurely.  .  .  . 

In  another  of  her  letters.  Catherine  Booth  tells  her 
mother  that  a  composition  of  hers,  "  On  the  training  of 
young  converts,"  which  has  already  appeared  in  the  New 
Connexion  Maga::ine,  was  now  published  in  the  Canadian 
Christian  Witness,  "  so  it  has  found  an  audience  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Atlantic."  She  then  says,  "  I  have  been 
reading  a  very  good  work  on  Homoeopathy  which  has  re- 
moved my  last  difficulty  on  the  subject,  and  if  I  should 
be  ill  I  should  like  a  homceopathic  doctor."     But   she  is 


xvii]  YOUNG  MARRIED  LIFE  265 

not  entirely  occupied  with  chapel-going,  writing  for  the 
New  Connexion  Press,  and  studying  books  of  medicine; 
she  has  her  wardrobe  to  think  about : 

I  shall  soon  begin  to  feel  the  cold  in  travelling  and  shall 
want  my  merino  dress,  etc.,  etc.  You  will  have  to  send  us  a 
parcel  before  we  leave  Sheffield,  but  I  will  send  a  list  of  what 
we  want  next  week.  .  .  .  Let  Letty  unpick  the  skirt  of  my 
merino  dress  and  wash  it  nicely  for  me  (body  as  well)  — if 
you  have  not  opportunity  to  make  the  skirt  up  again  you  must 
send  it  undone,  and  I  must  get  it  done  at  Leeds.  I  shall  want 
you  to  send  likewise  that  old  black  cloth  cloak  to  make  me  a 
loose  jacket  to  wear  under  my  shawl  when  travelling.  Will 
you  look  at  William's  best  coat?  I  hope  the  moths  are  not  in 
reach  of  it. 

After  bidding  her  mother  look  in  the  second  drawer  and 
send  word  as  to  what  flannel  underclothing  the  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Booth  possesses  which  would  be  worth  sending,  she 
winds  up  with  the  suggestion  that  Mrs.  Mumford  should 
advertise  for  a  good  lodger,  saying,  "  you  would  soon  save 
a  little  to  serve  as  capital  for  father  at  the  beginning." 

In  one  of  her  letters  written  from  Sheffield  on  October  5, 
and  addressed  to  "  My  very  dear  Parents,"  occurs  a  signifi- 
cant sentence :  "  I  enclose  a  few  lines  solely  on  personal 
matters,  i.e.  relating  exclusively  to  myself,  which  I  wish 
mother  only  to  see."     Later  in  the  same  letter: 

The  place  we  have  been  to  to-day  is  one  of  the  most  splendid 
houses  I  ever  visited,  and  has  a  very  kind  and  sympathetic 
lady  for  its  mistress.  ...  I  like  her  much ;  she  will  prove  a 
valuable  friend  to  me  while  here.  She  is  within  a  fortnight  of 
her  confinement,  so  she  can  sympathize  with  me  fully.  I  feel 
this  to  be  a  special  boon  just  now,  because  though  in  the 
house  where  we  are  staying  I  have  everything  else  I  want,  I 
have  no  sympathy  —  simply  because  it  forms  no  part  of  the 
nature  of  my  hostess  —  which  you  know  is  a  great  desidera- 
tum with  me.  But  I  have  everything  in  my  precious  husband 
which  makes  other  things  insignificant ;  otherwise  I  should 
soon  be  in  London  again  with  my  own  dear  mother. 

In  conclusion,  "  William  encloses  ten  shillings'  worth 
of  letter  stamps  which  I  presume  father  can  easily  get  cash 
for  amongst  his  city  friends;  it  is  for  you  to  defray  your 


266  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

expenses  in  going  to  the  Crystal  Palace;  now  remember! 
that  is  what  it  is  sent  for;  we  both  wish  you  to  go." 

But  William  Booth  not  only  thinks  of  sending  his  poor 
dejected  mother-in-law  for  a  recuperative  trip  to  the  Crystal 
Palace,  denying  himself  for  this  purpose,  but  becomes  every 
day  more  tender,  more  kind,  more  loving,  to  his  sick  wife. 
Himself  an  invalid,  and  all  but  prostrate  after  every  fresh 
exertion  in  the  pulpit,  he  is  Catherine's  constant  nurse  and 
faithful  servant.  He  rises  at  all  hours  of  the  night  to  give 
her  nourishment  and  to  tend  the  fire.  He  is  never  too  tired 
to  comfort  her.  She  tells  her  parents  of  this  increasing  love, 
stopping  in  the  midst  of  her  news  to  say  that  William  has 
just  entered  the  room  "  exhausting  his  vocabulary  of  kind 
words  and  tender  epithets,"  and  cries  out  from  a  heart  over- 
flowing with  gratitude,  "  Whence  to  me  such  waste  of  love?  " 

One  cannot  read  these  old  and  faded  letters  without 
perceiving  a  change  both  in  William  and  Catherine  Booth. 
On  her  part,  she  is  no  longer  the  writer  of  the  love-letters, 
a  woman  so  obsessed  by  religion  that  her  humanity  scarcely 
appears  there,  so  mindful  of  God  that  she  can  hardly  write 
one  letter  to  her  lover  without  a  reproach,  an  admonishment, 
a  warning,  or  a  cry  for  deeper  spirituality;  she  is  now, 
with  an  even  quickened  sense  of  religion,  the  adoring  wife 
and  the  expectant  mother,  full  of  concern  for  domestic 
trifles  which  are  really  of  immense  concern,  and  happy, 
contented,  ravished  by  a  wonderful  love.  And  he,  for  his 
part,  is  no  longer  tortured  about  his  soul  or  fearful  of 
ambition.  He  is  overflowing  with  love,  he  is  surer  of  his 
mission,  he  is  swept  forward  by  an  unmistakable  enthu- 
siasm. Nothing  is  too  humble  for  him  to  do  in  the  lodgings 
that  form  their  home,  no  service  is  too  great  or  too  small 
for  him  to  render  to  his  wife.  It  is  as  if  in  their  love  they 
had  found  the  solution  of  their  religious  difficulties,  as  if 
deep  acquaintance  with  each  other  had  solved  the  problems 
of  their  separate  personalities. 

Certainly  William  Booth  had  never  preached  with  greater 
effect.  This  mission  in  Sheffield  was  perhaps  his  first 
whirlwind  triumph.  The  chapels  were  so  full  that  the 
stairs  of  the  pulpits  were  crowded  and  hundreds  stood  at 
the    doors.     Conversions    occurred    among    people    of    all 


XVII]  YOUNG  MARRIED  LIFE  267 

classes.  He  was  besought  to  go  to  other  chapels  in  the 
neighbourhood.  The  church  to  which  he  belonged  seems  to 
have  realized  that  a  new  Wesley  had  arisen  in  their  midst. 
And  it  is  interesting  to  discover  that  Catherine  Booth's 
anxiety  for  his  future,  and  her  criticisms  of  his  dangers, 
came  to  an  end  at  this  period : 

We  had  a  wonderful  day  at  the  chapel  yesterday,  a  tre- 
mcndoiis  crozcd  jammed  together  like  sheep  in  a  pen,  and  one 
of  the  miglitiest  sermons  at  night  I  ever  listened  to,  from 
"  Will  a  man  rob  God?  Yet  ye  have  robbed  Me!  "...  I  be- 
lieve that  if  God  spares  him,  and  he  is  faithful  to  his  trust, 
his  usefulness  will  be  untold,  and  beyond  our  capacity  to  esti- 
mate. He  is  becoming  more  and  more  effective  every  day, 
and  God  seems  to  be  preparing  him  in  his  ozvn  soul  for  greater 
things  yet. 

We  do  indeed  (she  writes)  find  our  earthly  heaven  in  each 
other.  ...  I  never  knew  him  in  a  more  spiritual  and  devo- 
tional condition  of  mind.  His  character  daily  rises  in  my 
esteem  and  admiration.  .  .  .  He  often  tells  me  he  could  not 
have  believed  he  should  ever  have  loved  a  being  as  he  loves  me. 

After  the  strain  of  the  mission  in  Sheffield,  the  Booths 
went  to  Chatsworth  for  a  brief  rest  before  making  a  fresh 
onslaught  at  Dewsbury.  Old  Mrs.  Booth  had  come  to 
them,  and  Catherine  expresses  pleasure  at  this  meeting. 
"  She  is  a  very  nice-looking  old  lady,  and  of  a  very  sweet 
and  amiable  spirit."  The  party  was  a  pleasant  one  in  every 
way,  for  old  Mrs.  Booth  —  sweetened  by  age  —  could  now 
enjoy  the  popularity  attained  by  her  only  son,  the  young 
Mrs.  Booth  v/as  no  longer  anxious  about  her  husband's 
future,  and  William  Booth  himself  was  able  to  rest  for  a 
few  days  from  incessant  preaching.  The  letters  are  full  of 
rather  guide-book  descriptions  of  Chatsworth,  with  only  an 
occasional  deviation  into  moral  reflection.  "  The  old 
Duke,"  wrote  Catherine,  "ought  to  be  a  happy  man,  if 
worldly  possessions  can  give  felicity.  But  alas!  we  know 
they  cannot.  And,  according  to  all  accounts,  he  is  one  of 
those  to  whom  they  have  failed  to  impart  it."  She  also 
tells  her  mother  that  Sir  Joseph  Paxton's  house,  "  quite  a 
gentleman's  seat,"  is  near  the  lodge  which  is  kept  by  one 
"  who  still  works  as  a  plodding  gardener."  Then  she  says. 
"  They  both  came  on  to  the  estate  together,  and  at  equal 


268  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

wages,  which  were  very  low.  And  now  one  is  '  Sir  Joseph,' 
known  all  over  the  world,  while  the  other  is  still  but  keeper 
of  the  Lodge." 

This  holiday  gives  us  a  picture  of  the  revivalist  taking 
his  ease  in  the  country.  We  learn  that  he  was  enchanted 
by  the  beauty  of  Derbyshire,  that  he  walked  vigorously, 
and  that  he  was  so  happy  and  exhilarated  that  he  saluted 
people  encountered  on  the  road.  Mrs.  Booth  relates 
how  "  the  dark  frowning  cliffs  on  one  hand,  the  splendid 
autumnal  tints  of  rich  foliage  on  the  other,  and  the  ever- 
varying  views  of  hill  and  dale  .  .  .  tinged  with  glory  from 
a  radiant  sky,  filled  us  with  unutterable  emotions  of  admira- 
tion, exhilaration,  and  joy."  We  learn,  too,  that  when  she 
had  walked  as  far  as  her  strength  could  carry  her,  William 
Booth  would  leave  her  to  rest  and  plunge  farther  up  the 
dale  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  a  Hazlitt.  On  one  of  those 
occasions,  Mrs.  Booth  waited  "  at  a  very  ancient  and  comi- 
cal kind  of  inn,"  where  she  enjoyed  '*  a  very  cosy  and  to  me 
amusing  chat  in  rich  Derbyshire  brogue  with  an  old  man 
over  his  pipe  and  mug  of  ale." 

No  sooner  did  this  delightful  holiday  come  to  an  end 
than  Mrs.  Booth  was  attacked  by  a  severe  inflammation  of 
the  lungs.  They  were  at  Dewsbury,  and  her  husband  was 
once  more  called  upon  to  bear  the  equally  exhausting  parts 
of  revivalist  and  sick  nurse.  We  have  the  official  records  of 
astonishing  success  in  the  pulpit,  and  eloquent  testimonies 
from  Mrs.  Booth  in  her  letters  home  to  his  extraordinary 
tenderness  and  loving-kindness  at  the  bedside. 

In  announcing  to  her  parents  that  the  itinerary  of  this 
revivalism  was  carrying  them  to  Leeds,  Mrs.  Booth  ex- 
presses an  opinion  which  gives  one  an  amusing  view  of  her 
vigorous  character: 

I  believe  we  are  to  have  a  very  nice  home,  where  there  are  no 
children,  quite  a  recommendation,  seeing  how  they  are  usually 
trained!  I  hope  if  I  have  not  both  sense  and  grace  to  train 
mine  so  that  they  shall  not  be  a  nuisance  to  everybody  about 
them,  that  God  will  in  mercy  take  them  to  Heaven  in  infancy. 

From  the  struggle  and  success  of  the  Dewsbury  Revival 
they  went  to  Leeds,  arriving  there  in  December,  1855,  and 


XVII]  YOUNG  MARRIED  LIFE  269 

finding  arrangements  so  bad  that  William  Booth  blazed  out 
with  indignation  and  wrath.  He  refused  at  first  to  co- 
operate with  the  plans  prepared  for  him,  and  "  it  took  the 
preacher  —  Mr.  Crampton  —  till  midnight  to  persuade 
him."  We  shall  have  something  to  say  in  the  next  chap- 
ter of  William  Booth's  stubbornness  and  that  strain  of 
acerbity  in  his  nature  which  perplexed  so  many  people  who 
came  upon  him  for  the  first  time  in  moments  when,  dis- 
tracted by  care  and  anxieties,  he  was  by  no  means  tractable 
or  even  polite ;  but  in  this  place  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he 
had  real  cause  for  his  annoyance,  and  that  it  was  entirely  on 
unselfish  grounds  that  he  raised  his  objection. 

The  truth  is,  officialdom  could  never  handle  a  man  of  this 
temperament.  Officialdom  exists  in  a  system;  officialdom 
has  its  own  dignity  to  consider;  officialdom  is  mediocrity 
in  purple.  William  Booth  was  a  genius  and  a  fanatic ;  he 
would  have  broken  with  officialdom  from  the  very  first  but 
for  a  curious  weakness  in  his  temperament  which  preyed 
upon  the  force  and  energy  of  his  individual  powers  and  led 
him,  directly  he  began  to  reflect,  to  lean  upon  authority. 
He  experienced  those  baffling  alternations,  those  swift  and 
torturing  transitions,  which  plunge  the  soul  from  the  heights 
of  confidence  into  the  depths  of  self-distrust.  At  one 
moment  he  felt  himself  able  to  remove  mountains,  and  at 
the  next  afraid  to  raise  his  own  head.  It  will  be  seen  that 
but  for  Mrs.  Booth  this  weakness,  this  rather  amiable 
modesty  of  self-distrust,  might  have  kept  him  in  the  shafts 
of  officialdom  to  the  end  of  his  life. 

It  was  at  Leeds  that  William  Booth  first  manifested  a 
distaste  for  what  is  called  society.  His  popularity  was 
embarrassing,  his  success  as  a  revivalist  amazing,  and  all 
the  accounts  of  that  time  show  him  as  a  fiery  preacher  not 
only  able  to  crowd  and  pack  large  buildings  with  a  breath- 
less audience,  not  only  able  to  sway  the  emotions  of  enor- 
mous congregations,  but  able  permanently  to  change  the 
lives  of  sinful  men.  But  he  was  no  hero  of  drawing-room 
and  parlour.  "  The  people  would  pull  him  to  pieces  tc 
visit  them,"  writes  Mrs.  Booth;  "but  he  cannot  accept  one 
invitation  without  accepting  others,  and,  besides,  he  wants 
retirement.     Thus  one  of  my  hidden  fears  about  the  future 


2JO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

is  dissipated,  viz.,  that  he  would  love  company,  and  lose 
his  relish  for  home  and  domestic  joys." 

These  hidden  fears  which  anxious  women  conceal  from 
the  husbands  to  whom  they  are  mothers  as  well  as  wives, 
were  real  and  serious  fears  in  the  case  of  Mrs.  Booth.  She 
feared  popularity,  she  feared  social  success,  and  she  feared 
insincerity.  In  spite  of  the  devotion  he  showed  her,  in  spite 
of  his  loving-kindness  in  her  sick-room,  and  in  spite  of  the 
spiritual  impression  his  preaching  made  upon  her  critical 
mind,  she  was  haunted  by  the  doubt  that  popularity  might 
turn  his  head,  that  social  flattery  might  tempt  him  from  the 
hard  and  narrow  way  of  the  enthusiast,  that  the  exhaustion 
of  revivalism  might  lead  him  into  the  destructive  habits  of 
formalism.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  noblest  tribute  to  his  char- 
acter that  he  dissipated,  one  by  one,  these  hidden  fears  of 
his  anxious  and  vigilant  wife.  His  critics  were  numerous, 
and  he  made  hundreds  of  enemies ;  but  not  one  of  those 
critics  watched  him  so  narrowly  or  penetrated  so  deeply 
into  the  recesses  of  his  character  as  the  wife  whose  hidden 
fears  were  born  of  love,  and  who  desired  his  salvation  with 
all  the  energy  of  her  remarkable  character. 

She  writes  to  her  parents  of  the  final  triumph  at  Leeds : 
"  My  precious  William  excelled  himself,  and  electrified  the 
people.  You  would  indeed  have  participated  in  my  joy 
and  pride  could  you  have  heard  and  seen  what  I  did." 
And  then  he  enters  the  room,  reads  her  letter,  snatches  it 
from  her,  and  writes :  "  I  just  want  to  say  that  the  very 
same  night  she  gave  me  a  curtain  lecture  on  my  block- 
headism,  stupidity,  etc.,  and  lo,  she  writes  to  you  after  this 
fashion.  However,  she  is  a  precious,  increasingly  precious 
treasure  to  me,  despite  the  occasional  dressing-down  that 
I  come  in  for."  And  the  letter  concludes  in  her  hand,  "  I 
must  say  in  self-defence  that  it  was  not  about  the  speech 
or  anything  important  that  the  said  curtain  lecture  was 
given,  but  only  on  a  point  which  in  no  way  invalidates  my 
eulogy." 

The  coming  of  the  first  baby  was  no  longer  an  inspiration 
for  theological  and  educational  discourse.  Catherine  Booth 
is  now  concerned  onlv  with  the  little  clothes  which  she 
commissions  her  mother  to  get  made  for  her,  issuing  mi- 


XVII]  YOUNG  MARRIED  LIFE  271 

nutest  commands  in  the  matter  of  style  and  trimming.  She 
has  a  great  longing  for  her  mother,  and  writes  from 
wretched  lodgings,  "  there  is  no  nurse  like  a  mother,  how- 
ever kind,  except  a  husband."  Again  and  again  she  tells 
of  William's  watchfulness,  tenderness,  and  patience.  She 
falls  ill  with  a  very  bad  cough,  and  refuses  a  doctor  be- 
cause she  fears  bleeding  and  blistering;  William  pulls  her 
through  with  a  book  on  homoeopathy  and  a  medicine  chest. 
In  January  she  is  assailed  with  terrible  doubts  as  to  whether 
the  child  is  living;  she  fancies  that  she  detects  a  strange 
difference  in  herself  since  she  was  taken  ill  with  the  cough. 
But  she  has  moments  of  happiness  and  delight,  free  from 
all  anxiety  and  full  of  confidence  —  this  expectant  mother, 
this  delicate  and  impecunious  girl  living  in  provincial 
lodgings. 

I  have  made  a  skirt  of  Scotch  woollen  plaid  (she  writes  to 
her  mother),  which  looks  very  nice.  You  will  remember  these 
plaids  are  favourites  with  Wm. ;  he  often  tells  me  how  beauti- 
ful (!)  I  look,  and  says  he  wishes  you  could  see  me;  and  I  do 
think  I  look  better  than  ever  I  can  remember  doing ;  my 
countenance  has  quite  lost  the  haggard  expression  it  used  to 
wear,  and  I  generally  have  a  little  colour,  so  you  see  all  this 
happiness  is  not  fruitless. 

But  a  sudden  terror  seizes  her  early  in  1856.  What  if 
the  child  is  born  prematurely ! 

I  am  constantly  meeting  with  someone  who  did  not  go  their 
time  of  the  first  child;  and  it  makes  me  anxious  to  be  ready; 
for  I  find  it  is  a  very  common  thing,  tho'  I  hope  it  won't 
happen  to  mc.  I  should  hate  it!  (the  word  liatc  is  underlined 
vigorously  three  times)  but  I  should  get  a  doctor's  certificate  to 
say  it  was  premature. 

They  were  now  living  in  3  Gerrard  Street.  Hapwood 
Lane,  Halifax,  and  from  this  address  Mrs.  Booth  writes  to 
her  parents  on  February  11,  1856 : 

...  I  am  not  very  well  to-day,  I  have  been  out  marketing 
this  morning,  and  of  course  I  have  many  little  things  to  attend 
to  in  my  new  house,  but  I  like  it  very  much  and  never  was 
happier,  it  will  however  make  a  great  difference  to  us  in  money 
matters  being  on  our  own  expenses  in  housekeeping.  I  have 
wished  many  and  many  a  time  that  my  dearest  mother  could 


272  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

come  in  and  see  me  every  now  and  then,  and  I  should  not  be 
surprised  if  we  send  for  you  in  a  hurry  some  day  before  we 
leave  here.  ...  I  should  like  you  to  send  the  parcel  as  soon 
as  you  can  now  as  I  want  to  get  everything  ready.  .  .  .  Send 
the  rose  ointment  you  made  for  me,  and  the  marking  ink  out 
of  Wm.'s  dressing  case,  also  the  small  soft  brush  out  of  the 
case. 

Five  days  later  she  writes  : 

My  precious  Mother  —  The  parcel  came  to  hand  this 
morning  while  Wm.  was  out,  I  was  not  long  in  opening  it,  and 
while  I  turned  over  its  contents  I  alternately  laughed  and 
cried,  the  style  of  the  little  gowns  far  exceeds  my  expectations, 
they  are  beautifully  done  —  I  am  sure  they  must  have  tried 
your  poor  eyes  sadly.  If  you  joined  the  insertion  yourself, 
you  are  cleverer  than  I  gave  you  credit  for,  they  are  really 
very  nice.  I  have  only  one  regret  respecting  them  and  that 
is  that  the  material  is  not  somewhat  better;  on  comparing  it 
with  some  corded  muslin  I  bought  at  34  per  yard,  I  find  it 
much  coarser,  but  perhaps  it  will  wear  no  worse.  I  like  the 
little  tucked  waists  of  the  longcloth  ones  very  much ;  Nurse 
says  they  are  too  good  for  night,  and  advises  me  to  make  a 
couple  quite  plain  to  sleep  in,  which  I  think  I  shall.  I  have 
not  bought  stuff  for  any  frocks  yet,  and  Nurse  says  since 
these  are  so  nice  I  shall  want  but  one  for  a  best,  so  I  shall  not 
trouble  about  any  more,  and  being  as  I  am  not  going  to  make 
any  more  I  should  like  to  insert  a  couple  of  rows  of  insertion 
with  a  tuck  between  in  the  skirt  of  the  best  you  sent,  I  mean 
the  one  with  the  jacket  body,  and  insertion  in  the  sleeves;  can 
you  get  me  some  insertion  like  it?  I  have  measured  it  round, 
it  will  take  4  yards  and  a  half  to  go  twice  round,  if  you  can 
get  it  like  it,  do  so,  and  then  you  can  either  send  it  in  a  letter 
or  bring  it  with  you.  The  caps  are  little  ducks.  I  am  only 
afraid  they  have  injured  your  eyes  in  doing  them.  .  ,  . 

William  Booth  encloses  a  letter  of  his  own : 

My  dear  Parents  —  Your  parcel  has  just  come  to  hand  and 
with  it  both  wife  and  self  are  delighted.  Mother  has  been 
very  industrious,  and  has  astonished  us  both  with  these  speci- 
mens of  her  ingenuity  and  skill.  I  write  to  convey  to  you  our 
united  thanks,  and  most  heartily  do  I  join  you  in  the  hope  that 
our  dear  Catherine  may  be  safely  brought  through  the  hour  of 
trial  and  that  these  little  garments  may  be  worn  by  some  little 
stranger  who  will  ultimately  prove  a  source  of  gladness  and 
comfort  to  us  all. 

With  regard  to  Mamma  coming  here,  there  is  but  one  thing 


XVII]  YOUNG  MARRIED  LIFE 


273 


that  causes  us  for  a  single  moment  to  hesitate  and  that  is  the 
having  to  part  with  her  lodgers.  .  .  .  We  are  anxious  for  her 
to  be  with  us  at  the  time  the  event  occurs  —  but  we  do  not 
want  her  on  that  account  to  suffer  loss.  Nurse  is  a  very  sen- 
sible woman,  and  I  should  think  rather  skilful  in  these  under- 
takings. 

Their  first  child,  William  Bramwell  Booth,  was  born  on 
March  8,  1856.  The  father  records  this  event  in  a  cheerful 
letter  to  his  wife's  parents  : 

It  is  with  feelings  of  unutterable  gratitude  and  joy  that  I 
have  to  inform  you  that  at  half-past  eight  last  night  my  dearest 
Kate  presented  me  with  a  healthy  and  beautiful  son.  The 
baby  is  a  plump,  round-faced,  dark-complexioned,  black-pated 
little  fellow.     A  real  beauty. 

This  birth  began  for  William  and  Catherine  Booth  as 
difficult  a  family  life  as  can  well  be  imagined.  They  were 
poor;  thev  had  no  home;  their  future  was  always  threatened 
with  disaster;  and  the  manner  of  their  lives  was  the  very 
last  one  would  have  thought  compatible  with  domestic  hap- 
piness and  family  affection.  Further  than  this,  W'illiam 
Booth  was  delicate,  Catherine  Booth  was  almost  a  com- 
plete invalid.  They  went  like  gipsies  from  town  to  town, 
living  in  lodgings,  and  plunging  themselves  at  every  fresh 
adventure  into  the  violence  and  excitements  of  religious 
revivalism.  What  the  science  of  eugenics  would  have  to 
say  of  such  parents,  and  what  medical  science  would  have 
to  say  of  their  methods  of  living,  one  can  imagine  very 
easily ;  and  yet,  these  parents  gave  to  the  world  —  not  only 
to  their  own  country,  but  to  the  whole  world  —  a  race  of 
men  and  women  sufficiently  remarkable  to  exercise  a  power- 
ful influence  for  good  on  millions  of  human  beings.  Mrs. 
Booth  was  a  severe  mother.  William  Booth  was  by  no 
means  a  sentimental  father,  and  yet,  in  the  midst  of  their 
distracted  and  laborious  life,  they  were  able  to  watch  over 
their  children  so  successfully  that  they  not  only  trained  them 
spiritually,  morally,  and  intellectually,  but  won  their  ad- 
miration and  affection. 


^ 


\ 


k'''y\ 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

WHICH  TELLS  OF  A  THORN   IN   THE  FLESH,   SECTARIAN 
DIFFERENCES,  AND  A  BREAK  WITH   METHODISM 

1857-1861 

Although  William  Booth  lived  to  a  great  age,  and  up  to 
the  very  last  was  full  of  energy,  he  was  an  invalid  who 
suffered  from  one  of  the  most  distressing  and  exhausting  of 
physical  complaints.  The  seeds  of  this  affliction  were  no 
doubt  sown  in  the  bitter  days  of  poverty,  wretchedness, 
overwork,  and  religious  excitement,  when  he  served  as  an 
apprentice  in  Nottingham;  but  he  might  have  been  cured, 
one  thinks,  had  it  not  been  for  the  restless  energy  and  the 
continual  nervous  exhaustion  of  his  life  in  the  early  days  of 
his  Mission.  He  may  be  said  to  have  almost  destroyed  his 
digestion  before  he  was  six-and-twenty. 

In  his  happy  moments  he  was  playful,  tender,  and  con- 
siderate. But  when  dyspepsia  manifested  itself,  when  his 
body,  starved  of  nourishment,  was  uttering  its  rebellion, 
he  was  often  irascible,  explosive,  and  sometimes  even  cen- 
sorious. However,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  course  of  this 
narrative,  there  was  never  real  harm  in  these  outbursts. 
There  was  nothing  in  his  nature  that  could  be  called  vin- 
dictive or  radically  bad-tempered;  but  ill  health  always 
found  the  weak  spot  in  his  character,  the  weak  spot  which 
in  some  ways  was  destined  to  be  the  strength  of  his  life  — 
that  stubbornness,  that  sense  of  dogmatic  rightness,  that 
feeling  of  obstinate  dictatorship,  which  gave  offence  to 
many,  but  which  was  the  rock  of  safety  for  so  many  more. 

If  we  wish  to  call  him  a  saint  we  must  remind  ourselves 
that  the  conventional  view  of  saintship  is  not  catholic; 
there  have  been  real  and  great  saints  very  different  in  dis- 
position from  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  And  without  exalting 
him  to  the  seats  of  the  highest  saints,  without  claiming  that 
he  is  the  peer  of  those  untroubled  spirits  whose  names 
breathe  like  cathedral  music  through  the  soul  of   Chris- 

274 


THE  REV.  WILLIAM  BOOTH  (1859) 


0( 


[cHAp.xvm]       BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  275 

tendom,  we  may  still  urge  that  if  the  test  of  saintship  is 
sacrifice  of  self,  entire  dependence  on  invisible  power,  and 
passionate  devotion  to  "  the  poorest,  the  lowliest,  and  the 
lost,"  few  men  have  lived,  carrying  so  heavy  a  burden  as 
this  man  carried,  who  more  deserved  to  be  enrolled  among 
the  saints  of  Christ. 

It  is  possible,  of  course,  to  urge  that  he  brought  his  ills 
upon  himself ;  that  with  reasonable  care  and  a  more  sensible 
outlook  upon  the  world,  he  would  have  avoided  the  affliction 
which  made  him  sometimes  irritable  and  occasionally  ex- 
plosive. This,  no  doubt,  is  a  just  charge;  but  William 
E  )oth  would  have  replied  to  it  that  had  he  been  more 
cautious  and  more  careful  of  himself,  he  would  have  been 
a  thousand  times  more  irritable.  For  he  was  a  man  who 
could  not  look  calmly  upon  a  distracted  world ;  his  tempera- 
ment was  such  that  he  could  not  behold  misery  without 
longing  to  remove  it,  could  no^  ^?_ji"  without  rushing  to 
attack  it.  Other  men  can  survey  the  sin  and  suFeirTng  of 
humanity  with  an  infinite  indifference,  or,  at  any  rate,  with 
that  dangerous  form  of  faith  common  to  leisured  deism, 
which  sings  of  God  in  His  Heaven,  unconscious  of  God 
immanent  in  humanity ;  but  William  Booth  felt  that  he 
had  to  work,  felt  that  he  had  to  do  something,  felt  that  he 
was  definitely  charged  by  God  with  the  work  to  which  he 
set  his  hand.  How  could  such  a  man  be  philosophical  and 
detached?     How  could  he  take  care  of  himself? 

Mrs.  Booth,  as  the  reader  will  remember,  was  critical  of 
some  methods  of  revivalism  in  the  days  of  her  first  en- 
counter with  William  Booth;  but  she  ultimately  accepted 
her  husband's  views,  and  herself  became  one  of  the  most 
powerful  and  persuasive  exponents  of  those  views.  If  one 
would  have  a  defence  of  revivalism,  she  has  given  it  in  a 
few  sentences  which  not  only  are  a  veritable  defence  of  such 
methods,  but  which  help  one  considerably  to  see  into  the 
minds  of  these  two  awakeners. 

She  says  that  she  would  rather  have  a  sudden  conversion 
than  a  tardy  one.  "  When  men  are  seen  to  be  wrong,  it 
must  be  very  desirable  to  get  them  right."  Here  is  a  man, 
she  exclaims,  who  has  developed  a  fixed  habit  of  evil-doing, 
of   falsehood,   impurity,   drunkenness,   or   some   other   sin. 


2y()  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

"  The  great  end  in  view  is  to  persuade  him  to  abandon  his 
evil  course,  and  surely  the  sooner  you  can  persuade  him  to 
do  so  the  better." 

I  have  been  very  much  struck  (she  continues)  with  the  dif- 
ferent manner  in  which  people  argue  about  temporal  and 
spiritual  things.  In  regard  to  the  former,  supposing  a  friend 
is  about  to  adopt  some  mistaken  course,  you  ply  him  with  the 
best  arguments  you  can  command,  and  the  more  quickly  these 
take  effect  the  better  you  are  pleased  .  .  .  you  do  not  think 
any  the  worse  of  him  because  of  the  readiness  with  which  he 
has  accepted  the  truth.  Nor  do  you  for  a  moment  imagine 
that  he  must  go  through  a  long  preparatory  process  before  he 
can  act  upon  his  convictions.  Why,  then,  in  the  religious 
world  should  the  exactly  similar  phenomenon  be  doubted,  sim- 
ply on  account  of  its  suddenness? 

William  Booth  cries  out : 

*' Be  patient,"  do  you  say?  "Wait  the  Lord's  time?" 
TMs  is  the  Lord's  time ;  why  should  I  wait  ?  There  is  a 
sanctified  anger  because  it  is  just,  and  there  is  a  sanctified  im- 
patience because  it  is  born  of  benevolence.  How  can  we  wait 
and  see  the  people  die,  and  see  the  generations  sweep  off  be- 
fore our  eyes  into  eternal  woe,  that  might  be  rescued  —  that 
might  be  saved? 

He  answers  those  who  say  to  him,  "  You  go  too  fast," 
with  the  bewildered  question,  "  What  do  you  mean?  " 

I  know  no  '*  Flying  Dutchman  "  or  "  Flying  Scotchman,"  or 
any  other  kind  of  flying  railway  train  that  goes  fast  enough  for 
me.  Time  is  so  precious  that  unless  it  can  be  spent  in  sleeping 
or  working,  every  minute  of  it  is  begrudged,  and  my  feeling 
whenever  I  seat  myself  in  a  train  —  be  the  journey  long  or 
short  —  is  "  Now,  engine-driver,  do  your  best,  and  fly  away." 

He  argues  that  if  he  were  head  of  a  money-making  busi- 
ness, no  investor  would  complain  that  he  made  profits  too 
quickly;  or  that,  if  he  were  general  of  a  killing  army,  he 
could  not  go  fast  enough  in  slaughter  to  please  his  country- 
men.    Then  he  faces  the  real  criticism : 

"  But  there  is  danger  with  great  speed."  Well,  perhaps 
there  is,  but  that  is  not  certain;  and  if  there  is  I  decline  to 
abate  the  speed  to  avoid  the  risk.  If  this  thing  is  worth 
doing,  let  us  do  it  with  all  our  might.  "  But  if  you  go  on  the 
smash  will  come."     Well,  perhaps  it  will. 


XVIII]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  277 

He  was  prepared  for  the  risk,  the  risk  which  he  con- 
fronted with  his  wife  again  and  again,  that  perhaps  they 
were  making  an  impossible  demand  which  must  end  in 
reaction  and  catastrophe.  But  the  destructive  energy  of 
sin  dragged  him  away  from  this  doubt,  and  he  decided  that 
the  only  forces  which  could  destroy  him  were  the  forces  of 
evil,  the  same  forces  which  "  smashed  Jesus  Christ."  lie 
cried  out  that  sin  travels  faster  than  salvation ;  that  salvation 
must  press  forward  at  all  hazard  to  overtake  and  quench 
that  "  prairie  fire  " ;  tha^  while  the  soldier  of  Christ  slackens 
speed  death  steals  a  marclx  u^on  a  guilty  world.  No. 
"Faster  and  faster,"  is  his  cry;  whatever  the  risk,  what- 
ever the  end ;  faster  and  faster  till  a  catastrophe  like  the 
catastrophe  of  Calvary  ends  one  period  and  begins  another. 

His  character  may  be  seen  very  clearly  in  a  charge  to 
his  followers  where  he  bids  them  cultivate  whatever  dis- 
position they  possess.  He  does  not  say  to  the  angry  man 
cease  to  be  angry,  or  to  the  jealous  man  cease  to  be  jealous; 
he  says  to  them,  make  your  anger  and  your  jealousy  like 
the  anger  and  the  jealousy  of  God  —  hate  sin,  and  be 
jealous  for  the  souls  of  humanity.  He  never  sought  to 
transform  men ;  he  sought  to  convert  them.  They  were  to 
be  the  same  men,  but  facing  in  another  direction.  The 
same  faculties  which  they  had  employed  for  evil  were  to 
be  more  industriously  and  passionately  employed  for  good : 

Go  on  hating,  night  and  day,  in  every  place,  under  all  cir- 
cumstances. Bring  this  side  of  your  nature  well  into  play. 
Practise  yourself  in  habits  of  scorn  and  contempt  and  loath- 
ing and  detestation  and  revenge  ;  but  mind,  let  your  hatred  and 
revenge  go  in  the  right  direction  —  the  direction  of  sin  —  evil 
—  the  evil  condemned  by  the  Bible,  the  evil  that  Jesus  Christ 
was  manifested  to  destroy. 

He  used  to  say  of  himself  that  he  was  not  a  saint  but  a 
soldier.  His  disposition  was  what  it  was ;  he  could  only 
direct  it  towards  God.  One  knows  that  he  could  never 
have  written  the  Fourth  Gospel.  And  yet  it  is  important 
to  observe  that  while  he  was  a  bold  and  unquestioning 
follower  of  St.  Paul,  he  acknowledged  in  his  heart  the  supe- 
rior qualities  of  St.  John.  Again  and  again  he  expresses  a 
burning  and   a  consuming  desire    for   deeper   spirituality. 


278  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

He  named  his  first  son  after  William  Bramwell,  "  the 
apostle  of  Holiness."  He  was  always  seeking  for  that 
serenity  of  the  soul  which  -is  the  saint's  reward,  a  deeper 
joy  than  the  exhilaration  of  the  soldier,  a  more  lasting  and 
a  more  permeating  strength  than  ever  comes  from  the 
exercise  of  battle.  To  the  end  of  his  life  he  was  haunted, 
dimly  and  vaguely  perhaps,  by  something  in  the  spiritual 
life  which  he  had  missed  and  which  he  sighed  for  as  one 
of  the  rewards  of  Heaven.  He  was  distressed  to  his  last 
days  by  the  sins  and  miseries  of  the  world.  He  had 
fought  a  good  fight,  but  the  world  was  not  changed. 

Everything  faulty  in  his  character  had  its  rise  in  the 
impatience  of  a  soul  wellnigh  maddened  by  the  endless 
miseries  of  mankind,  and  stung  to  indignation  by  the  sloth 
and  deadness  of  the  Christian  Church.  He  was  obsessed 
by  Jehovah,  and  his  thoughts  of  this  terrible  and  avenging 
God  of  Israel  had  flowed  from  childhood  in  channels  of  a 
western  grooving.  And  yet  the  immense  achievement  of 
his  life  rose  out  of  this  very  conception  of  God.  Because 
he  believed  in  the  everlasting  tortures  of  Hell,  he  was  tor- 
tured by  the  sins  of  mankind;  because  he  believed  in  a  stern 
and  terrible  Jehovah,  he  spared  no  moment  of  his  life  from 
shouting  his  stern  and  terrible  warning  to  a  thoughtless 
world.  He  not  only  won  thousands  and  thousands  of  men 
from  the  degradation  and  destruction  of  sin,  he  roused  the 
whole  Church  of  Christ  to  activity  and  definitely  influenced 
the  social  politics  of  the  world.  But  if  his  theology  had 
been  more  consonant  with  the  theology  which  we  feel  is 
truer,  chiefly  because  it  is  less  dogmatic,  his  life  might  have 
passed  with  infinitely  less  benefit  for  mankind. 

His  life,  indeed,  presents  many  difificult  problems.  We 
are  puzzled  to  decide,  for  instance,  whether  the  intense 
exertion  of  impassioned  preaching,  which  certainly  helped 
to  impair  his  health  and  perhaps  tinged  a  fine  heroic 
character  with  faults  that  we  could  wish  away,  did  not  at 
the  same  time  tend  to  prolong  his  life.  Instead  of  nursing 
himself  and  playing  the  dangerous  tricks  with  his  body 
which  carry  so  many  valetudinarians  to  the  grave,  hejthrew 
off  his  lethargy,  his.depression,  and  his  intense  lassitude^y 
campaigns   which  would   have  exhatisted  the   strength  of 


xviii]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  279 

robust  men.  He  seems  to  have  injured  his  heahh  and  pre- 
served his  Hfe  by  the  same  means.  And  it  would  appear 
that  he  resohitely  faced  the  sacrifice  of  his  health,  knowing 
full  well  the  effect  it  would  produce  upon  him,  because  he 
was  convinced  that  his  life  could  benefit  the  world. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  of  him  that  he  thought  so 
much  more  of  the  world  than  of  his  own  personal  place  in 
the  favour  of  God,  that  he  never  set  himself  to  win  the 
heights  of  saintship,  but  deliberately  threw  himself  into  the 
battle  of  life  where  qualities  other  than  meekness  and  gentle- 
ness can  alone  distinguish  the  hero  from  the  coward. 

Until  he  finally  came  to  London,  in  1865,  where  his 
career  entered  upon  a  new  and  remarkable  phase,  he  was  a 
struggling  minister  of  a  dissenting  church  which  did  not  pay 
him  very  liberally,  and  which  harassed  him  at  every  turn. 
From  town  to  town,  dragging  his  invalid  wife  and  his  chil- 
dren with  him,  he  went,  preaching  his  flaming  message  of 
God's  anger  against  sin.  A  more  burdened  and  embar- 
rassed man  never  set  hand  to  work  so  exhausting  and  so 
heartbreaking.  Poor  in  purse,  suffering  in  body,  worried 
by^ofificialdom,  torn  by  anxiety  for  his  dejicate  wife  and  his 
young  children,  he  was  one  of  the  most  successful  revival- 
ists that  ever  visited  the  north  and  west  of  England.  From 
the  heated  excitements  of  the  crowded  buildings,  refusing 
invitations  to  the  houses  of  his  admirers,  he  hurried  back 
to  his  lodgings  to  wait  upon  his  wife,  to  care  for  his  chil- 
dren, often  to  sit  up  sleepless  through  the  night  racked 
with  pain  and  spiritual  conflict.  Is  it  any  wonder,  we  may 
ask,  that  he  injured  his  health  and  hindered  his  character? 
Some  of  his  letters  at  this  period  are  charged  with  the 
melancholy  of  a  soul  suffering  the  extreme  of  mental  tor- 
ture. He  doubts  the  sincerity  of  some  conversions.  He 
doubts  his  own  vocation.  He  fears  the  future  for  his  wife 
and  children. 

In  one  of  these  pathetic  letters  which  tells  his  wife, 
"  I  have  a  constant  load  at  my  chest  and  weight  on  my 
head,"  he  speaks  of  the  conversion  of  a  young  girl  who 
"  \\e\-)t  sorely  and  appeared  in  great  distress  and  to  have 
much  rejoiced  when  she  got  a  hope."     He  continues : 

But  I  hear  she  was  dancing  away  Thursday  and  Friday  in 


28o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  Market  House,  with  half  the  town  looking  on.  I  have 
many  thoughts  about  this  kind  of  converted  people,  indeed 
many  temptations  about  the  whole  affair.  I  find  so  few  who 
seem  to  me  to  live  Christianity.     Who  is  there? 

Then  he  proceeds : 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  you  tell  of  your  sickness.  I  can't  help 
you  nozv.  My  sympathy  comes  too  late.  I  have  nothing 
wherewith  to  comfort  you.  I  have  not  had  a  thought  or  feel- 
ing the  last  24  hours  the  description  of  which  would  cheer  you 
in  the  least.  And  I  don't  see  any  ground  for  expecting  any- 
thing in  the  future. 

Inside  the  flap  of  an  envelope,  bearing  the  post-mark  of 
Chester  and  the  date  Feb.  24,  1857,  William  Booth  writes 
to  his  wife: 

My  heart's  warmest  fondest  Love  —  I  have  pressed  this 
to  my  lips  with  as  tender  emotion  as  ever  I  clasped  you  in  my 
arms.  The  usual  number  of  kisses  for  "  Sunshine."  Does  he 
get  them  all? 

"  Sunshine "  was  the  child  Bramwell,  from  whom  his 
father  was  parted,  and  whose  companionship  might  have 
driven  away  the  clouds  which  pressed  upon  his  mind  and 
darkened  his  way. 

So  deep  is  his  dejection  that  he  even  contemplates  a 
complete  abandonment  of  his  mission: 

I  wonder  whether  I  could  not  get  something  to  do  in  London 
of  some  kind,  some  secretaryship  or  something  respectable  that 
would  keep  us  going.  I  know  how  difficult  such  things  are  to 
obtain  without  friends  or  influence,  as  I  am  fixed.  But  we 
must  hope  against  hope,  I  suppose. 

The  letter  concludes,  "  I  think  I  will  take  a  book  and  go 
out  and  see  if  I  can  feel  any  better  with  a  little  fresh  air." 

Acute  indigestion  was  not  alone  responsible  for  this  fit 
of  despair.  Indigestion  was  there  to  aggravate  his  mind, 
but  the  real  bur-den  pressing  upon  his  soul  and  sickening  his 
enthusiasm  was  the  hostility  of  his  Church.  He  found  him- 
self harried,  criticised,  and  opposed.  The  more  he  suc- 
ceeded the  more  bitter  became  this  hostility.     The  life  he 


xviii]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  281 

desired  to  live  was  not  an  easy  life;  on  the  contrary,  it  was 
the  most  laborious  and  wearying  and  disheartening  life  that 
a  man  could  undertake;  but  the  authorities  hampered  him 
and  refused  his  request.  It  was  not  as  if  he  alone  desired  to 
live  this  life;  the  towns  he  had  visited  were  crying  out  for 
his  return.  We  may  safely  say  that  since  Wesley  no  such 
evangelist  had   appeared   in   England. 

We  do  not  wish  to  imply  that  this  opposition  to  William 
Booth  was  entirely  without  reason.  His  methods  were 
ardent  and  unusual ;  he  must  have  shocked  or  offended  a 
great  many  pious  people;  his  appearance  in  a  town  did, 
no  doubt,  lead  to  certain  manifestations  of  violent  emotion. 
But  he  was  opposed  on  other  grounds  as  well  as  these. 
Certain  ministers  in  the  New  Connexion  were  his  enemies; 
many  felt  that  he  w'as  too  young  for  such  perpetual  promi- 
nence; others  were  unquestionably  jealous  of  his  powers. 

The  result  of  this  opposition  culminated  after  wearisome 
checks  and  quite  heroic  efforts  on  William  Booth's  part  to 
accommodate  himself  to  authority  in  a  final  severance  from 
the  Church.  In  the  year  1857  the  Annual  Conference  of 
the  New  Connexion  met  in  Nottingham,  and  decided  that 
William  Booth  should  cease  his  evangelistic  w^ork  and  be 
appointed  to  a  regular  circuit.  He  wrote  to  acquaint  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Mumford  with  this  result  in  the  following  terms : 

You  will  have  been  expecting  a  line  from  us  containing  Con- 
ference information,  and  now  that  our  suspense  is  ended  in 
certainty,  or  nearly  so,  I  take  the  first  opportunity  of  sending 
you  a  line.  For  some  time  I  have  been  aware  that  a  party 
has  been  forming  against  me.  Now  it  has  developed  itself 
and  its  purpose.  It  has  attacked  and  defeated  my  friends,  and 
my  evangelistic  mission  is  to  come  to  an  immediate  conclusion. 
On  Saturday,  after  a  debate  of  five  hours,  in  which  I  am  in- 
formed the  bitterest  spirit  was  manifested  against  me,  it  was 
decided  by  44  to  40  that  I  be  appointed  to  a  circuit.  The  chief 
opponents  to  my  continuance  in  my  present  course  are 
ministers,  the  opposition  being  led  on  by  the  Rev.  P.  J.  Wright 
and  Dr.  Crofts.  I  care  not  so  much  for  myself.  A  year's 
rest  will  be  very  acceptable.  By  that  time,  God  will,  I  trust, 
make  plain  my  way  before  me,  either  to  abide  as  a  circuit 
preacher,  or  by  opening  me  a  door  which  no  man  or  number 
of  men  shall  be  able  to  shut.  My  concern  is  for  the  Con- 
nexion—  my  deep  regret  is  for  the  spirit  this  makes  manifest, 
and  the  base  ingratitude  it  displays. 


282  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

From  one  of  his  sympathizers  he  received  a  manful  and 
amusing  letter  of  encouragement,  which  shows  how  af- 
fectionately he  was  regarded  by  some  of  the  laity  in  his 
communion : 

I  believe  that,  as  far  as  the  preachers  have  power,  they  will 
close  the  New  Connexion  pulpits  against  you.  Human  nature 
is  the  same  in  every  Conference,  whether  Episcopalian,  Wes- 
leyan,  New  Connexion,  Primitive,  or  Quaker.  And  the  only 
way  for  such  men  as  you  and  Caughey  to  escape  the  mental 
rack  and  handcuffs  is  to  take  out  a  licence  to  hawk  salvation 
from  the  great  Magistrate  above,  and  absolutely  refuse  to  have 
any  other  master. 

O  Brother  Booth,  if  I  could  preach  and  floor  the  sinners  like 
you  can,  I  would  not  thank  Queen  Victoria  to  be  my  aunt  or 
cousin !  When  I  hear  or  read  of  your  success,  I  could  wish 
to  be  your  shoe-black!  There  is  no  man  of  whom  I  have  read, 
Caughey  excepted,  who  has  equalled  you  for  usefulness,  con- 
sidering the  short  time  you  have  been  at  it.  And  for  you  to 
allow  the  decrees  of  the  New  Connexion  Conference,  or  of 
any  other  conclave  of  men,  to  turn  you  away  from  follow- 
ing the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  what  I  cannot  bear 
to  think  of.  I  know  what  you  feel,  and  I  also  have  shed  the 
big  agonizing  tear,  when  placed  in  the  same  circumstances. 
Glory  be  to  God.  I  am  free,  and  I  will  keep  so.  You  know 
what  the  wolf  said  to  Towser,  "  Half  a  meal  with  liberty  is 
better  than  a  whole  one  without  it !  " 

The  Booths  were  sent  to  Brighouse;  "a  low  smoky 
town,"  said  Mrs.  Booth,  "  and  we  are  situated  in  the  worst 
part  of  it."  Their  superintendent  is  described  as  "  a 
sombre,  funereal  kind  of  being  .  .  ,  utterly  incapable  of  co- 
operating with  Mr.  Booth  in  his  ardent  views  and  plans  for 
the  salvation  of  the  people."  It  was  a  sad  and  very 
melancholy  time,  only  relieved  by  the  domestic  happiness 
of  a  second  addition  to  their  family  in  the  person  of  Ball- 
ington  Booth.  "  Labour  in  this  circuit,"  wrote  William 
Booth,  "  is  the  most  like  ploughing  on  a  rock  of  anything 
I  ever  experienced  in  my  life."  He  cries  out  that  he  can 
only  be  happy  "  in  a  floodtide  of  salvation,"  and  utters  the 
desire  of  his  heart  to  be  "  independent  of  all  conclaves, 
councils,  synods,  and  conferences." 

It  was  at  Brighouse  that  Mrs.  Booth  began  to  help  in 
the  work  of  the  Church,  and  this  she  did  successfully  in 


XVIII]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  283 

spite  of  domestic  occupations.  Her  love  for  her  children, 
and  at  the  same  time  her  strictness  with  them,  is  shown  in 
the  following  instructive  letter  to  her  parents : 

The  children  are  well.  They  are  two  beauties.  Oh,  I  often 
feel  as  though  they  cannot  be  mine !  It  seems  too  much  to  be 
true  that  they  should  be  so  healthy,  when  I  am  such  a  poor 
thing!  But  it  appears  as  if  the  Lord  had  ordered  it  so,  while 
many  whom  I  know,  who  are  far  healthier  and  stronger  than 
ourselves,  have  delicate  children.  I  sometimes  think  it  is  a 
kind  of  reward  to  William  for  his  honourable  fidelity  to  me, 
notwithstanding  my  delicate  health  and  his  many  temptations 
before  we  were  married.  I  believe  in  a  retributive  Providence, 
and  often  try  to  trace  domestic  misery  to  its  source,  which  is 
doubtless  frequently  to  be  found  in  the  conduct  of  men  towards 
their  early  loves.  God  visits  for  such  things  in  a  variety  of 
ways.  Bless  the  Lord,  we  are  reaping  no  such  fruits.  The 
curse  of  no  stricken  heart  rests  on  our  lot,  or  on  our  children. 
But  in  peace  and  domestic  happiness  we  "  live  and  love  to- 
gether." .  .  . 

Willie  gets  every  day  more  lovable  and  engaging  and  affec- 
tionate. He  manifests  some  very  pleasing  traits  of  character. 
You  would  love  to  see  him  hug  Ballington,  and  offer  him  a  bit 
of  everything  he  has!  He  never  manifests  the  slightest 
jealousy  or  selfishness  towards  him,  but  on  the  contrary  he 
laughs  and  dances  when  he  caresses  baby,  and  when  it  cries 
he  is  quite  distressed.  I  have  used  him  to  bring  me  the  foot- 
stool when  I  nurse  baby,  and  now  he  runs  with  it  to  me  as 
soon  as  he  sees  me  take  him  up,  without  waiting  to  be  asked, 
a  piece  of  thoughtfulness  I  seldom  receive  from  older  heads! 
Bless  him.  I  believe  he  will  be  a  thoroughly  noble  lad,  if  I 
can  preserve  him  from  all  evil  influences.  The  Lord  help  me ! 
I  have  had  to  whip  him  twice  lately  severely  for  disobedience, 
and  it  has  cost  me  some  tears.  But  it  has  done  him  good, 
and  I  am  reaping  the  reward  already  of  my  self-sacrifice.  The 
Lord  help  me  to  be  faithful  and  firm  as  a  rock  in  the  path 
of  duty  towards  my  children ! 

The  reader  will  understand  the  need  for  tears  on 
Mrs.  Booth's  part  w^hen  he  remembers  that  the  disobedient 
Bramwell  was  two  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  his  whipping. 

It  was  at  Brighouse  that  Mrs.  Booth  was  threatened 
with  a  return  of  the  spinal  affliction  which  had  condemned 
her  to  bed  and  sofa  in  youth.  She  exclaims  that  but  for 
the  children  she  would  like  to  escape  from  her  "  trouble- 
some, crazy  body." 


284  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

William  was  talking  the  other  day  (she  writes  home)  about 
the  different  bodies  we  shall  have  after  the  resurrection.  I 
replied  that  I  hoped  so,  or  I  should  never  want  to  find  mine 
any  more.  I  would  leave  it  to  the  worms  as  an  everlasting  por- 
tion, and  prefer  to  live  without  one !  It  is  much  harder  to 
suffer  than  to  labour,  specially  when  you  have  so  many  calls 
on  your  attention. 

They  paid  a  visit  to  Sheffield,  where  they  met  James 
Caughey,  the  American  revivalist,  who  baptized  Ballington 
and  wrote  an  inscription  in  Mrs.  Booth's  Bible.  "  When 
he  took  leave  of  me,"  she  says,  "  I  pressed  one  fervent  kiss 
on  his  hand,  and  felt  more  gratified  than  if  it  had  been 
Queen  Victoria." 

A  brief  account  of  William  Booth's  ordination  is  fur- 
nished by  his  son-in-law.  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker,  in 
his  biography  of  Catherine  Booth : 

The  Conference  met  in  May  at  Hull.  Mr.  Booth  was  unani- 
mously received  into  what  is  termed  full  connection,  his  four 
years  of  probation  now  having  expired.  He  was  accordingly 
summoned  to  present  himself  for  ordination.  This  was  a 
somewhat  formidable  ceremony.  The  President  for  the  year, 
and  the  ex-Presidents  of  former  years,  stood  upon  the  plat- 
form for  the  purpose  of  "  laying  hands  "  on  the  candidates, 
who  were  previously  called  upon  to  give  an  account  of  their 
conversion,  and  of  their  reasons  for  seeking  ordination. 

Mr.  Booth  had  stipulated  with  some  of  those  in  whose  piety 
and  devotion  he  thoroughly  believed,  that  he  should  be  near 
them  and  reap  whatever  advantage  might  accrue  from  their 
faith  and  prayers,  while  there  were  others  whom  he  studiously 
avoided,  feeling  that  if  the  laying  on  of  their  hands  involved 
the  impartation  of  the  character  and  spirit  they  possessed,  he 
would  rather  dispense  with  it! 

The  question  of  his  re-appointment  to  evangelistic  work  had 
not  as  yet  come  up  for  the  consideration  of  the  Conference. 
A  number  of  circuits  had  petitioned  in  favour  of  the  proposal, 
and  Mr.  Booth's  friends  were  prepared  to  push  the  matter 
vigorously  when  it  was  brought  forward  for  discussion.  The 
following  characteristic  letter  from  him  just  after  he  had  re- 
ceived his  ordination  describes  the  situation: 

2gth  May,  1858. 
I  have  just  been  to  Hull  to  receive  the  right  of  ordination. 
I  understand  that  my  reception  into  full  connection  was  most 


XVIII]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  285 

cordial  and  thoroughly  unanimous.  The  service  was  an  in- 
teresting one.  I  was  surprised  to  find  so  large  a  number  of 
revival  friends  at  the  Conference.  John  Ridgway,  William 
Mills,  William  Cooke,  Turnock,  and  many  others  are  anxious 
on  the  question  of  my  re-appointment  to  evangelistic  work. 
Birmingham,  Truro,  Halifax  (my  own  circuit),  Chester, 
Hawarden,  and  Macclesfield  have  presented  memorials  pray- 
ing Conference  to  reinstate  me  in  my  former  position.  The 
discussion  had  not  come  on  when  the  business  closed  last 
night. 

In  1858  they  went  to  Gateshead,  with  the  half  promise 
of  evangelistic  work  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Gateshead 
had  once  been  a  flourishing  centre  of  the  Connexion,  but 
the  defection  of  a  minister,  who  had  turned  infidel  lecturer, 
had  caused  a  grievous  set-back.  William  Booth  came  as 
a  deliverer,  and  soon  had  a  full  chapel.  "  It  was  not 
uncommon  for  the  aisles  and  every  available  spot  to  be 
occupied  so  that  some  two  thousand  people  were  crowded 
within  the  walls."  The  iron-w^orkers  of  the  tow^n  dubbed 
this  chapel  the  "  Converting  Shop." 

A  daughter  was  born  to  the  Booths  in  Gateshead, 
Catherine,  who,  as  the  "  Marechale,"  became  the  pioneer 
of  the  Salvation  Army  in  France.  Instead  of  regarding 
this  addition  to  their  responsibilities  as  a  grievance,  the 
Booths  appear  to  have  been  extremely  grateful  and  happy 
about  it.  For  one  thing,  their  work  in  Gateshead  was 
going  with  a  swing.  It  was  a  revival  in  one  place,  continu- 
ous and  well  organized.  Open-air  work,  a  new  thing  in  the 
town,  was  a  feature  of  the  campaign,  and  the  opposition  of 
the  publicans,  who  sent  out  gangs  of  half-tipsy  men  to  sing 
and  howl  the  services  down,  only  increased  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  workers. 

But  the  most  significant  events  in  this  campaign  con- 
cerned Mrs.  Booth.  It  was  here  that  the  idea  first  occurred 
to  her  of  speaking  to  drunken  people  in  their  houses  and 
in  the  streets.  At  a  time  when  she  was  extremely  delicate, 
and  with  three  young  children  to  look  after,  she  began  this 
hazardous  and  nerve-trying  work,  succeeding  so  happily 
that  she  could  go  into  some  of  the  worst  streets  quite  alone 
and  enter  houses  where  drunkenness  had  brought  family 


286  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

life  to  a  state  of  savagery.  "  They  used  to  let  me  talk  to 
them/'  she  says,  "  in  hovels  where  there  was  not  a  stick  of 
furniture  and  nothing  to  sit  down  upon." 

I  remember  in  one  case  finding  a  poor  woman  lying  on  a 
heap  of  rags.  She  had  just  given  birth  to  twins,  and  there 
was  nobody  of  any  sort  to  wait  upon  her.  .  .  .  By  her  side 
was  a  crust  of  bread  and  a  small  lump  of  lard.  .  .  .  The 
babies  I  washed  in  a  broken  pie-dish,  the  nearest  approach 
to  a  tub  that  I  could  find.  And  the  gratitude  of  those  large 
eyes,  that  gazed  upon  me  from  that  wan  and  shrunken  face, 
can  never  fade  from  my  memory. 

In  i860,  soon  after  the  birth  of  her  daughter,  Emma, 
Mrs.  Booth  gave  her  first  public  address,  crowning  her  long 
championship  of  a  "  Female  Ministry  "  by  practical  demon- 
stration. Her  success,  in  spite  of  excessive  nervousness, 
was  immediate,  and  when  William  Booth  fell  ill  and  had 
to  go  to  Matlock  for  hydropathic  treatment,  Mrs.  Booth 
took  his  place  in  the  chapel. 

Trouble  succeeded  trouble.  With  William  Booth  seri- 
ously ill,  all  the  children  were  attacked  by  whooping  cough. 
And  as  soon  as  these  dangers  were  overcome,  the  Booths 
found  themselves  once  more  confronted  by  the  problem  of 
the  Conference.  They  realized  that  to  drift  was  no  longer 
possible.  They  thought  that  uncertainty  had  continued  long 
enough.  If  the  Conference  could  not  find  a  plan  for 
William  Booth  to  do  evangelistic  work  in  the  various 
churches  of  the  Connexion,  then  he  was  prepared  to  go  out 
into  the  wilderness  alone. 

But  he  possessed  not  a  penny.  His  wife  was  delicate, 
and  they  had  four  young  children.  With  these  considera- 
tions weighing  them  down,  they  set  out  for  the  Conference 
of  1861,  which  was  held  in  Liverpool.  Fortunately  for 
William  Booth,  Catherine  Booth  went  with  him.  As  will 
be  seen  from  the  following  letters  addressed  by  Mrs.  Booth 
to  her  parents,  and  by  what  comes  after,  it  was  almost 
entirely  owing  to  the  resolution,  courage,  and  faith  of  this 
wonderful  woman  -that  William  Booth  cut  himself  adrift 
from  the  moorings  of  his  Church.  Up  till  the  last  moment 
he  was  afraid,  and  clung  to  the  hope  of  a  compromise  — 
hating  controversy,  reverencing  authority,  and  clinging  to 


THE  REV. 


WILLLVM  AND 
BOOTH  (i860) 


CATHERINE 


xviu]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  287 

his  Church.     It  was  Catherine  Booth  who  played  the  good 
Lady  Macbeth  in  this  minor  tragedy. 

Mrs.  Booth  to  her  Parents. 

Newcastle,  June,  1861. 

We  have  reason  to  fear  that  the  Annual  Committee  will  not 
allow  even  this  arrangement  [  ?  to  be  associated  with  the  Aln- 
wick Circuit  and  travel,  living  at  Newcastle]  to  be  carried  out, 
and  if  not,  I  do  not  see  any  honourable  course  for  us  but 
to  resign  at  once  and  risk  all  (if  trusting  in  the  Lord  for  our 
bread  in  order  to  do  what  we  believe  to  be  His  will  ought  to 
be  called  a  risk).  If  the  arrangement  is  allowed  to  work  it 
involves  all  sorts  of  difficulties.  This  Circuit  is  the  worst  to 
be  managed  in  the  whole  Connexion,  and  William  will  get 
nothing  by  his  connection  with  it  but  trouble  and  vexation. 
This  I  have  seen  from  the  beginning  and  have  opposed  his 
coming  so  far  as  I  could.  .  .  .  We  don't  know  what  to  do. 
We  only  want  to  do  right.  If  I  thought  it  was  right  to  stop 
here  in  the  ordinary  [circuit]  work,  I  would  be  quite  glad  to 
do  so,  but  I  cannot  believe  that  it  would  be  right  for  my 
husband.  And  none  of  our  friends  would  think  it  right  if 
we  only  had  an  income!  Then,  I  ask,  does  the  securing  of 
our  bread  and  cheese  make  that  right  which  should  otherwise 
be  wrong  when  God  has  promised  to  feed  and  clothe  us?  I 
think  not,  and  I  am  willing  to  trust  Him,  and  suffer  if  need 
be  in  order  to  do  His  will. 

William  is  afraid.  He  thinks  of  me  and  the  children  and 
I  appreciate  his  love  and  care,  but  I  tell  him  that  God  will 
provide  if  he  will  only  go  straight  on  in  the  path  of  duty.  It 
is  strange  that  /  who  always  shrink  from  the  sacrifice  should 
be  first  in  making  it,  but  when  I  made  the  surrender  I  did  it 
whole-heartedly,  and  ever  since  I  have  been  like  another  being. 
Oh,  pray  for  us  yet  more  and  more. 

I  am  much  tempted  to  feel  it  hard  that  God  has  not  cleared 
our  path  more  satisfactorily,  but  I  will  not  charge  God  fool- 
ishly. 1  know  that  His  way  is  often  in  the  whirlwind,  and  He 
rides  upon  the  storm.  I  will  try  to  possess  my  soul  in  patience 
and  to  zvait  for  Him. 

The  children  are  all  well.  They  do  not  like  the  change  at 
all.  Rless  them !  I  don't  think  the  Lord  will  ever  allow  them 
to  suffer  if  their  parents  seek  to  do  His  will. 

We  are  very  much  obliged  for  your  sympathy  and  kindness 
and  counsel.  With  reference  to  ui:)braiding,  I  have  often  told 
William  that  if  he  takes  the  step  and  it  should  bring  me  to  the 
Union  I  will  never  s-ay  one  upbraiding  word.  To  upbraid  any 
one  for  taking  such  a  step  for  God's  and  conscience'  sake 
would  be  worse  than  devilish.     No,  whatever  be  the  result  I 


288  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

shall  make  up  my  mind  to  endure  it  patiently,  looking  to  the 
Lord  for  grace  and  strength  to  do  so. 

We  have  sold  the  piano  to  Mr.  Firbank,  but  it  is  not  to 
be  paid  for  at  present.  We  have  nothing  coming  in  now  from 
any  quarter.  William  has  no  invitations  for  work.  The  time 
is  unfavourable.  He  has  two  for  the  winter,  but  the  preachers 
will  prevent  the  Circuits  asking  for  him,  and  Dr.  Cooke's 
resolution  makes  it  worse  than  it  was  before,  because  the  con- 
sent of  the  Superintendent  is  necessary.  We  already  know  of 
Circuits  who  want  him  where  we  have  no  doubt  the  preachers 
stand  in  the  way.  Oh,  if  it  were  not  for  God's  sake,  I  feel 
that  I  should  be  ashamed  to  be  a  preacher's  wife. 

Mrs.  Booth  to  her  Parents. 

June  24th,  1861. 

I  hope  neither  you  nor  my  dear  father  think  that  I  want 
to  run  precipitately  into  the  position  we  contemplate.  I  have 
thought  about  it  long  and  much.  It  has  cost  me  many  a  strug- 
gle to  bring  my  mind  to  it,  but  having  done  so,  I  have  never 
swerved  from  what  I  believe  to  be  the  right  course ;  neither 
dare  I.  But  I  am  quite  willing  to  listen  to  argument,  to  re- 
ceive light,  or  even  to  wait  for  the  accomplishment  of  our  de- 
sires if  I  can  only  see  justifiable  reasons.  But  I  have  no  hope 
that  God  will  ever  assure  us  that  we  shall  lose  nothing  in 
seeking  to  do  His  will.  I  don't  think  this  is  God's  plan.  I 
think  He  sets  before  us  our  duty,  and  then  demands  its  per- 
formance, trusting  solely  in  Him  for  consequences.  If  He 
had  promised  beforehand  to  give  Abraham  his  Isaac  back 
again,  there  would  never  have  been  that  illustrious  display  of 
faith  and  love  which  has  served  to  encourage  and  cheer  God's 
people  in  all  ages.  If  we  could  always  see  our  way,  we  should 
not  ever  walk  by  faith  but  by  sight. 

I  know  God's  professing  people  are  generally  as  anxious  to 
see  their  way  as  worldlings  are,  but  they  thus  dishonour  God 
and  greatly  injure  themselves. 

I  have  only  one  difficulty  in  my  own  mind  in  making  the 
full  venture  of  all,  and  that  is  whether  my  religious  experience 
warrants  me  in  claiming  the  fulfilment  of  the  promises  in  my 
own  individual  case.  The  Lord  help  us  to  be  found  faithful. 
I  don't  believe  in  any  religion  apart  from  doing  the  will  of 
God.  Faith  is  the  united  link  between  Christ  and  the  soul. 
If  we  don't  do  the  will  of  our  Father,  it  will  soon  be  broken. 
If  my  dear  husband  can  find  a  sphere  where  he  can  preach 
the  Gospel  to  the  masses,  I  shall  want  no  further  evidence 
of  the  will  of  God  concerning  him.  If  he  cannot  find  a 
-sphere,  I  shall  conclude  that  we  are  mistaken  and  be  willing 
to  wait  till  one  opens.  But  I  cannot  believe  that  we  ought 
to  wait  till  God  guarantees  us  as  much  salary  as  we  now  re- 


xviii]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  289 

ceive.  I  think  we  ought  io  trust  Him  to  send  us  the  supply 
of  our  need. 

Mrs.  Booth  to  her  Parents. 

Newcastle,  July  9,  1861. 

We  have  at  length  decided  our  course  of  action  for  at  least 
this  Connexional  year,  and  after  careful  thought  we  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  to  continue  the  present  arrangement  with  this 
Circuit,  and  thus  secure  William's  perfect  freedom  to  go 
wherever  God  may  call  him,  and  if  there  should  be  no  way 
open  he  can  still  take  a  Circuit  and  we  shall  at  least  have 
done  our  best  to  secure  what  we  deem  most  for  God's  glory 
and  the  salvation  of  souls. 

.  .  .  William  has  several  invitations,  one  to  St.  Ives  in  Corn- 
wall, but  he  won't  engage  there  if  anything  nearer  him  offers. 
He  had  a  good  beginning  at  Alnwick,  wonderful  for  the  place, 
but  the  blindness  and  infatuation  and  narrow-mindedness  of 
the  preachers   is  enough  to   make  the   stones   cry   out.     Mr. 

thought  it  would  be  wiser  to  defer  the  Services  till  the 

winter  as  one  of  the  leading  families  was  going  to  the  sea- 
side !  so  that  poor  convicted  sinners  and  Christ  and  God  must 
wait  their  convenience !  However,  William  has  delivered  his 
soul  to  theml 

First,  we  have  decided  to  stop  in  this  house  till  November 
because  we  can  live  rent  free  till  then,  and  I  have  felt  much 
better  the  last  week.  Second,  William  is  invited  to  Notting- 
ham for  Anniversary  sermons,  and  he  is  going  to  offer  for  a 
couple  of  Services,  and  if  they  accept,  I  purpose  going  with 
him,  and  then  when  we  are  near  we  intend  going  on  to  Derby 
and  making  a  regular  start  together.  Then  if  we  only  get  one 
good  work,  I  have  no  fear.  I  have  no  fear  of  being  able 
to  speak  in  public  for  at  least  some  months  to  come,  and  we 
must  make  the  most  of  our  opportunities  at  first.  It  appears 
to  me  that  God  may  have  something  very  glorious  in  store 
for  us,  and  when  He  has  tried  us,  He  will  bring  us  forth  as 
gold.  My  difficulty  is  in  leaving  home.  In  this  matter,  I  am 
sure  you  can  help  us  and  serve  the  Lord  without  hurting  your- 
selves in  the  least. 

Mrs.  Booth  to  her  Parents. 

July  II,  1861. 
We  have  "settled  the  matter,  and  we  are  not  going  to  leave  a 
stone  unturned  that  is  right  and  honourable  to  attain 
our  object,  and  if  we  cannot  why  then  we  shall  but  be  where 
we  were  before,  but  we  intend  with  God's  blessing  to  suc- 
ceed. I  do  not  fear  but  we  shall,  and  if  we  do,  every  one  will 
then  see  cause  to  honour  us,   and   I  shall  get  my  share  of 


290  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

honour,  for  hosts  of  people  say,  and  others  think,  that  if  it 
were  not  for  me  Wilham  would  have  taken  the  Circuit. 

Well,  I  know  my  own  motives,  and  they  are  such  as  I  shall 
not  blush  to  own  at  the  Judgment  Seat  of  Christ.  It  won't 
be  the  first  time  I  have  taken  a  leap  in  the  dark  humanly 
speaking,  for  conscience'  sake. 

I  am  aware,  on  the  other  hand,  that  if  we  fail  nearly  every- 
body will  censure  us  and  set  us  down  as  fanatics,  but  I  am  pre- 
pared to  endure  the  cross  and  despise  the  shame  if  God  sees  fit 
to  permit  it  to  come.  The  same  integrity  of  purpose  which 
would  enable  me  to  enjoy  honour  will  likewise  sustain  me 
under  reproach. 

The  Conference  is  not  likely  to  interest  posterity,  and 
those  who  desire  a  full  account  of  what  happened  there  will 
find  it  described  in  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker's  Life  of 
Catherine  Booth  (chapter  xxxix).  For  our  purpose  it  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  this  Conference  was  held  in  a  chapel, 
and  that  Mrs.  Booth,  who  was  seated  with  other  members 
of  the  public  in  the  gallery,  when  questioned  by  a  glance 
from  her  husband  in  the  pews  below  as  to  whether  he  should 
accept  a  miserable  compromise,  rose  in  her  place  and  ex- 
claimed in  a  determined  voice,  which  startled  the  business- 
like gentlemen  below,  "Never!"  At  that  resolute  ex- 
clamation Mr.  Booth,  we  are  told,  sprang  to  his  feet,  and 
bowing  to  the  chair  "  waved  his  hat  in  the  direction  of  the 
door."  Amidst  shouts  of  "  Order,  order,"  he  passed  down 
the  chapel,  met  his  wife  at  the  foot  of  the  gallery  stairs, 
embraced  her,  and  went  out  to  face  the  consequences  of  his 
act. 

Efforts  were  made  to  induce  the  young  minister  to  re- 
consider his  decision,  but  the  Booths  were  determined  to 
compromise  no  longer.  Rightly  or  wrongly  the  officials  of 
the  New  Connexion  were  dead  against  the  evangelistic  ideas 
of  William  Booth ;  he  was  a  nuisance  to  the  powers ;  they 
wanted  the  machine  to  run  smoothly;  and  every  compromise 
suggested  by  those  who  knew  his  value  was  eventually  col- 
oured by  this  spirit  of  traditional  respectability.  In  his 
letter  of  resignation  William  Booth  said,  "  Looking  at  the 
past,  God  is  my  witness  how  earnestly  and  disinterestedly  I 
have_endeavoured  to  serve  the  Connexion,  and  knowing  that 
the  future  will  most  convincingly  and  emphatically  either 
vindicate  or  condemn^  my  present  action,  I  am  content  to 


xvm]  BREAKS  WITH  METHODISM  291 

await  its  verdict."  But  although  he  could  write  so  confi- 
dently, and  although  with  a  stout  heart  he  had  announced 
to  the  Conference  that  he  would  do  the  work  to  which  he 
felt  that  God  had  called  him,  even  if  he  went  forth  "  with- 
out a  friend  and  without  a  farthing,"  it  was  a  black  day  in- 
deed for  him  when  he  found  himself  actually  cut -adrift 
from  his  Church,  After  seven  years  of  devoted  service,  he 
was  penniless;  and  this  time  he  had  a  wife  and  children  for 
whose  care  he  and  no  other  could  provide. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

WILDERNESS 
1861-1864 

The  idea  which  now  occupied  the  mind  of  WilHam  Booth 
—  the  first  sign  of  movement  towards  the  career  which 
awaited  him  in  London  —  was  to  extend  his  revivaHsm  from 
the  particular  denomination  he  had  served  so  industriously 
for  seven  years  to  all  the  Churches  of  his  native  land. 

He  and  his  wife  paid  a  brief  visit  to  Nottingham  after 
the  resignation,  and  Mrs.  Booth  then  proceeded  direct  from 
this  place  to  her  parents  in  London.  William  Booth,  in 
order  to  save  expense,  returned  to  Newcastle,  where  they 
had  left  their  four  children,  and  took  them  by  sea  to 
London.  He  was  accompanied,  it  is  interesting  to  observe, 
by  their  faithful  Irish  servant,  Mary  Kirton,  who  had  de- 
clared that  "  no  change  in  circumstances  should  induce  her 
to  leave  her  mistress,  and  that,  with  or  without  wages,  she 
would  continue  to  shepherd  the  little  ones." 

The  stranded  and  penniless  family  were  quartered  for 
the  present  upon  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Mum  ford  in  Brixton,  who 
showed  the  greatest^  kindness  to  the  Booths  in  their  difficult 
position.  An  in  itation  from  a  faithful  friend  in  the  New 
Connexion  to  conduct  a  mission  in  Hayle,  Cornwall,  was 
the  first  opening  of  a  door  since  the  resignation,  and  thither 
the  Booths  journeyed  in  August.  But  it  was  a  very  small 
door  indeed,  and  people  more  worldly-minded  than  William 
Booth  might  have  been  tempted  to  wait  for  something  that 
offered  a  wider  prospect  of  success.  No  remuneration,  so 
far  as  we  can  see,  was  suggested ;  and  apparently  the  Booths 
had  to  pay  their  own  travelling  expenses. 

However,  this  humble  mission  in  a  small  town  with  a 
coasting  trade  of  no  very  considerable  proportions  was 
destined  to  widen  into  a  great  Cornish  Campaign.  Al- 
though he  was  warned  that  the  Cornish  people  would  not 
tolerate  a  penitent-form,  William  Booth  persisted  in  this 

292 


[cHAP.xix]  WILDERNESS  293 

method  of  confessing  Christ,  and  soon  had  crowds  of 
people,  weeping,  groaning,  and  beating  upon  their  breasts, 
kneeling  at  this  simple  symbol  of  the  mercy-seat. 

We  had  the  greatest  difficulty  (he  writes)  to  clear  sufficient 
space  for  a  penitent-form,  and  when  we  had,  the  people 
crowded  up  and  around,  and  the  prayers  of  those  in  distress, 
the  shouts  of  those  who  had  obtained  deliverance,  and  the 
sympathetic  exhortations  and  exultations  and  congratulations 
of  those  who  stood  round,  all  united  made  the  most  confound- 
ing medley  I  ever  listened  to.  Again  and  again  I  endeavoured 
to  secure  order,  but  it  was  of  no  avail,  and  at  length  I  con- 
cluded to  let  it  go  for  the  evening,  doing  as  well  as  we  could. 

He  speaks  all  through  his  journals  at  this  time  of  diffi- 
culty in  preaching,  and  occasionally  tells  of  the  pains  which 
racked  him.  "  Opened  my  eyes  this  morning,"  he  says  in 
one  place,  "  with  strong  desire  for  more  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
in  my  own  heart.  Felt  some  little  power  in  private.  I 
want  more."  A  venerable  friend  of  mine,  visiting  in  Corn- 
wall at  this  time,  tells  me  that  she  saw  him  in  Pendeen 
Church  on  Good  Friday,  where  a  well-known  evangelist, 
the  Rev.  Robert  Aitken,  was  preaching;  she  remembers 
that  William  Booth  listened  intently  to  the  sermon,  that  he 
remained  in  prayer  long  after  the  service  was  concluded, 
and  that  his  eyes  were  filled  with  tears  as  he  waited  to 
speak  to  the  Vicar, 

There  can  be  no  doubt,  in  spite  of  all  the  accounts  of 
this  time,  that  William  Booth  was  suffering  very  acutely 
both  in  body  and  soul.  To  read  the  descriptions  of  that 
remarkable  Cornish  Revival  one  might  imagine  that  the 
revivalist  himself  was  carried  forward  on  a  wave  of  en- 
thusiasm, glowing  with  the  pride  of  victory,  and  happy  in 
the  conviction  that  he  had  found  his  mission.  But  this  is 
an  altogether  false  impression.  Often  he  had  to  drag  him- 
self to  the  various  chapels  he  visited,  his  head  bursting 
with  pain,  his  whole  body  heavy  with  sickness,  his  mind 
harassed  by  the  thought  of  the  future,  his  soul  asking 
questions  hard  to  answer.  Occasionally  he  was  troubled  by 
the  character  of  the  conversions.  Sometimes  he  wondered 
if  this  work  was  indeed  the  work  to  which  he  had  been 
called  by  God.     He  contemplated  the  abandonment  of  his 


294  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

preaching,  and  once  suggested  to  his  wife  that  he  should 
seek  commercial  work  in  London. 

It  is  interesting  and  instructive  to  remember  that  this 
immense  depression  of  mind  occurred  in  a  revival  which 
unquestionably  was  a  real  religious  awakening.  Villagers 
tramped  over  the  hills,  and  fishermen  rowed  eight  and  ten 
miles  across  a  dark  sea,  to  the  towns  where  William  Booth 
was  preaching.  Local  newspapers  record  that  in  some 
places  business  was  at  a  standstill.  Throughout  that  corner 
of  the  duchy,  from  Camborne  to  Penzance,  the  flame  raged 
with  increasing  force.  Conversions  were  made  in  hundreds. 
Scenes  occurred  "  beyond  description " ;  the  cries  and 
groans  "  were  enough  to  melt  a  heart  of  stone  " ;  in  the 
town  of  St.  Just  "  a  thousand  persons  have  been  gathered 
into  membership  in  the  different  churches." 

There  was  opposition,  of  course,  to  this  fiery  campaign. 
The  Wesleyans,  for  instance,  decided  to  close  their  chapels 
to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth.  Nor  did  the  reports  of  the  revival 
influence  the  1862  Conference  of  the  New  Connexion.  By 
56  votes  to  15  the  Conference  decided  to  accept  Mr.  Booth's 
resignation,  and  thus  any  hope  he  may  have  nourished  of  a 
return  to  the  Church  of  his  adoption  was  effectually 
knocked  on  the  head.  At  the  same  time  the  Primitive 
Methodists  passed  a  resolution  "  strongly  urging  all  their 
station  authorities  to  avoid  the  employment  of  revivalists, 
so  called." 

In  this  way  William  Booth  was  saved  from  the  coils  of 
a  somewhat  narrow  ecclesiasticism,  and,  being  driven  out 
of  a  particular  Church,  was  driven  towards  his  appointed 
destiny.  He  was  not  to  serve  one  Church,  but  all  the 
Churches;  he  was  not  to  labour  in  one  country,  but  in  all 
countries. 

The  Booths  at  this  juncture  were  staying  in  Penzance, 
and  here  another  child  was  born,  a  son,  Herbert,  bringing 
up  the  number  of  the  family  to  five.  The  situation  was  a  i 
desperate  one.  Wesleyans  and  Primitive  Methodists  might 
be  calling  to  William  Booth  from  every  town  in  the  duchy, 
but  the  ministers  had  the  key  of  the  chapel  door,  and  there 
was  no  admittance  for  "  revivalists,  so  called."  However, 
an  opening  was  made  for  them  in  Redruth,  where  the  Free 


XIX]  WILDERNESS  295 

Methodists  placed  their  chapel  at  the  disposition  of  these 
gipsies  of  the  religious  life,  and  there  a  revival  was  very 
soon  in  full  swing.  When  the  Booths  left  Cornwall  it  was 
estimated  that  seven  thousand  persons  had  professed  con- 
version. 

A  call  came  to  them  from  Cardiff,  and  they  left  Cornwall 
in  February,  1863,  after  a  visit  of  eighteen  months.  It  was 
at  Cardiff  that  they  made  something  of  a  break  with  the 
chapels  and  began  a  method  of  procedure  which  led  up  to 
the  Salvation  Army.  Although  chapels  were  open  to  them 
here  and  there,  the  principal  chapels  were  now  as  firmly 
closed  against  them  as  the  Roman  and  Anglican  Churches. 
Therefore  the  Booths  decided  to  make  use  of  secular  build- 
ings, and  the  most  successful  of  their  meetings  at  Cardiff 
were  held  in  a  circus. 

Some  of  William  Booth's  pecuniary  anxieties  were  light- 
ened at  this  period  in  his  life  by  a  rich  coal  merchant, 
John  Cory,  who,  with  his  brother  Richard,  came  under  his 
influence  and  gave  him  generous  and  unflinching  support. 
Here,  too,  the  Booths  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Billups,  also  generous  people,  who  showed  the  greatest 
sympathy  in  their  work  and  became,  like  the  Corys,  their 
life-long  friends. 

In  spite  of  this  support,  the  Booths  were  faced,  wherever 
they  turned,  by  the  boycott  of  the  religious  authorities. 
They  went  here  and  there,  preaching  where  they  could  and 
hoping  everywhere  for  an  opening  to  reach  the  people,  but 
encountering  everywhere  the  opposition  of  officialdom.  At 
Walsall,  meetings  were  held  in  the  open  air  and  a  real  revival 
was  established,  both  William  and  Catherine  Booth  drawing 
large  crowds  to  hear  them.  And  here  they  stayed  for 
some  time,  their  children  with  them,  hoping  to  have  found 
a  resting-place  for  at  least  a  few  months. 

At  a  children's  meeting  held  in  this  town  by  Mrs.  Booth, 
their  eldest  child,  William  Bramwell  Booth,  "  gave  himself 
to  Christ."  The  incident  is  related  by  Mrs.  Booth  in  a 
letter  which  is  very  characteristic  and  enlightening: 

For  some  little  time  I  had  been  anxious  on  his  behalf.  He 
had  appeared  deeply  convicted  during  the  Cardiff  services,  and 
one  night  at  th.e  circus  I  had  urged  him  very  earnestly  to  de- 


296  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

cide  for  Christ.  For  a  long  time  he  could  not  speak,  but  I 
insisted  on  his  giving  me  a  definite  answer,  as  to  whether  he 
would  accept  the  offer  of  salvation  or  not.  I  shall  never  for- 
get the  feeling  that  thrilled  through  my  soul  when  my  darling 
boy,  only  seven  years  old,  about  whom  I  had  formed  such 
high  expectations  with  regard  to  his  future  service  to  the 
Master,  deliberately  looked  me  in  the  face  and  answered 
"No!" 

It  was,  therefore,  not  only  with  joy,  but  with  some  little 
surprise  that  I  discovered  him  in  one  of  my  Walsall  meet- 
ings kneeling  at  the  communion-'rail  among  a  crowd  of  little 
penitents.  He  had  come  out  of  his  own  accord  from  the 
middle  of  the  hall,  and  I  found  him  squeezed  in  among  the 
rest,  confessing  his  sins  and  seeking  forgiveness.  I  need  not 
say  that  I  dealt  with  him  faithfully,  and  to  the  great  joy  of 
both  his  father  and  myself,  he  then  and  there  received  the  as- 
surance of  pardon. 

But  Walsall  v^as  to  prove  a  disappointment  in  other 
respects.  "  I  feel  a  good  deal  perplexed,  and  am  sometimes 
tempted  to  mistrust  the  Lord,"  wrote  Mrs.  Booth.  "  But  I 
will  not  allow  it.  Our  Father  knows !  "  At  that  hour 
they  had  not  received  sufficient  money  to  pay  their  travelling 
expenses  and  house  rent. 

Once  more  harried  and  dejected,  once  more  ordered  by 
the  policeman  of  orthodoxy  to  "  move  on,"  the  poor  gipsies 
suddenly  found  themselves  in  a  fresh  crisis.  William  Booth 
broke  down  in  health.  He  had  contracted  a  bad  ulcerated 
throat,  he  had  sprained  his  ankle,  and  the  worries  of  his 
position  were  now  greatly  disturbing  his  peace  of  mind. 
But  for  the  kindness  of  some  friends  who  sent  him  off  to 
Matlock  for  hydropathic  treatment,  there  is  little  doubt 
that  this  breakdown  in  health,  coming  at  a  time  of  great 
financial  anxiety,  would  have  had  serious  results. 

In  the  quotations  from  the  letters  of  William  Booth  to 
his  wife  which  now  follow  it  will  be  seen  that  the  impulsive 
and  ardent  revivalist  was  sometimes  called  upon  to  en- 
courage the  drooping  spirits  of  Catherine  Booth.  Depres- 
sion was  not  entirely  on  his  side.  Very  often  it  was  his 
courage  and  his  faith  which  rose  to  meet  difficulties  almost 
overwhelming  to  Mrs.  Booth.  These  letters,  written  from 
Sheffield  in  the  autumn  of  1864,  provide  one  with  a  fairly 


XIX]  WILDERNESS  297 

intimate  picture  of  the  domestic  circumstances  of  the  sepa- 
rated couple : 

I  am  rather  afraid  that  I  am  not  going  to  be  very  com- 
fortably located.  There  is  much  knocking  about.  They  come 
in  and  out  of  my  room  and  sit  in  it  occasionally.  I  like 
privacy.  I  want  no  company  but  yours.  1  was  woke  up  this 
morning  at  6  with  some  one  at  the  house  bell  and  could  not 
sleep,  so  i  thought  1  would  get  up  and  talk  to  you.  But 
they  are  homely  nice  people  from  the  neighbourhood  of  South 
Lincolnshire.  //  /  am  not  right  1  shall  change  .  .  .  you  may 
rely  on  it,  my  dearest,  that  I  shall  be  most  thankful  once  more 
if  possible  to  abide  at  home  and  to  abide  with  thee.  But  we 
must  be  careful.  We  could  not  come  here  much,  if  anything, 
under  iio.  We  shall  want  £21  for  Assurance  directly,  and 
the  extra  expenses  for  winter  clothing,  sable  victorine,  teeth, 
etc.  etc.,  will  be  £6  or  £8  more.  So  we  must  look  before  we 
leap.  Still  I  think  there  is  a  sphere  here,  and  I  shall  do  my 
utmost  to  work  it,  and  we  will  all  live  together  again  so 
soon  as  the  Lord  shall  make  it  possible.  .  .  .  My  poor  little 
children.  Bless  them.  And  dear  Willie;  I  am  afraid  we  are 
rather  hard  on  them  sometimes. 

.  .  .  Good-bye  for  the  present.  Cherish  yourself.  Always 
wear  the  respirator. 

I  had  a  slight  throat  affection  last  night.  Pray  for  me. 
Live  in  and  for  Jesus. 

I  have  little  else  but  this  paper  with  me  and  I  want  to  use 
it  and  get  it  out  of  the  way.  I  fancy  it  would  suit  your 
writing;  try  it.  It  does  not  suit  my  old  quill  a  bit.  .  .  .  How 
very  much  I  should  like  to  see  you  to-day,  to  hold  you  in  my 
arms  and  look  at  you,  right  through  your  eyes  into  your 
heart,  the  warm  living  beautiful  heart  that  throbs  so  full  of 
sympathy  and  truth  for  me  and  mine,  and  then  to  press  you 
to  my  heart  and  hold  you  there  and  cover  you  with  kisses, 
warm  and  earnest  kisses.  Bless  you.  I  send  you  t7vo  kisses ; 
you  understand  me  and  you  will  keep  your  promise  with  them. 

Kiss  the  children  for  me.  Tell  Willie  I  got  him  a  penknife 
this  morning,  and  Ballington  that  I  am  going  about  the  white 
mice.  The  white  mice  and  pigeon  man  is  coming  with  the 
Hallelujah  Band  to  Leeds.  I  have  not  time  or  patience  to 
write  more.  Somehow  I  am  nervous,  the  day  is  damp  and 
sultry,  and  my  room  is  hot  and  close,  and  I  am  out  of  sorts 
for  writing  ...  I  feel  lonely  and  nervous.  I  don't  like  the 
folks  much  I  am  with  and  I  am  tired.  I  shall  be  better  in  the 
morning. 

In  one  of  his  letters  he  asks  her  to  send  him  "  a  little  love- 


298  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

talk  "  to  carry  about  with  him  in  his  purse.  It  appears 
that  he  burnt  most  of  her  letters  but  always  kept  one  par- 
ticularly affectionate  note  which  he  packed  into  his  purse. 
Sometimes,  on  his  rare  visits  to  her,  she  would  find  one  of 
these  crumpled  notes  in  his  purse,  and  ashamed  of  her 
"  love-talk  "  would  destroy  it.  "  You  robbed  my  purse," 
he  complains,  "of  the  bit  you  sent  me  to  Hyde." 

I  could  write  on  for  hours  to  you.  O  we  won't  be  af r-aid  of 
loving  one  another.  We  will  not  hold  in  and  bind  up  our 
hearts.  Let  us  be  grateful  for  all  our  mercies.  We  have  many 
many  more  than  many  around,  and  there  may  be  gloomy  hours 
in  the  future.  Days  of  a  long  and  dreary  separation,  a  separa- 
tion made  by  the  grave,  O  to  think  of  you  being  the  other 
side  of  the  river  and  me  not  able  to  see  and  embrace  and 
speak  to  you.  Never  to  hear  your  voice  more.  Now  you  are 
away,  but  I  am  feasting  on  you,  and  on  the  hour  when  again 
/  hold  you,  and  look  at  you  and  kiss  you,  and  have  the  de- 
licious rapture  of  hearing  you  say  you  love  and  reciprocate 
all  my  feelings. 

The  visit  of  the  Hallelujah  Band  to  Sheffield  interests 
him,  and  it  is  evident  that  the  impression  made  upon  him 
by  these  Yorkshire  "  trophies  "  was  a  lasting  one,  and  that 
it  recurred  to  his  mind  when  he  came  to  form  the  Salvation 
Army. 

They  certainly  are  waking  up  people  here,  and  our  serv- 
ices are  so  different.  They  all  wear  red  shirts,  coats,  and 
vests  off.  sleeves  turned  up,  and  sing  and  jump  together. 
This  won't  last  long  or  take  with  everybody. 

He  debates  the  question  of  renting  a  small  house  in 
Sheffield,  and  making  it  a  centre  for  their  free-lance  re- 
vivalism : 

On  the  whole,  I  think  it  would  be  the  best.  Of  course  I 
would  like  to  do  better  and  somewhat  different.  But  is  this 
the  best?  I  have  not  seen  Mr.  Baton.  I  don't  see  how  he 
could  help  me.  It  will  cost  me  7s.  to  go  to  Nottingham,  3rd 
class  return.  I  would  like  to  have  a  night  there.  To  go  and 
come  in  one  day  would  break  mother's  heart. 

Mrs.  Booth  appears  to  have  had  some  trouble  with  a 
dishonest  servant,  and  he  writes  to  her  on  the  subject,  re- 


XIX]  WILDERNESS  299 

ferring  at  the  same  time  to  the  engagement  of  a  governess 
for  the  children : 

Your  letter  has  amazed  me.  I  am  astonished  with  the  girl's 
audacity.  I  am  at  rest  now,  but  O  she  must  have  been  to 
the  Police  Station  before  this  time,  or  she  would  never  have 
dared  to  have  gone,  when  she  could  so  easily  have  saved  her- 
self. It  was  that  that  perplexed  me,  and  feeling  how  much 
better  it  was  to  let  20  guilty  persons  escape  rather  than  punish 
one  innocent  one.  Well !  Now  I  think  you  should  write  her 
uncle  to  tell  him  she  has  left  you,  and  to  say  you  would  like 
her  to  return  to  him  until  she  can  obtain  a  situation.  Could 
you  not  propose  this  to  her?  I  am  so  afraid  of  her  taking 
to  the  WORST  OF  ALL.     The  Lord  have  mercy  upon  her. 

With  regard  to  Miss  C .     I  don't  dislike  her  letter.     One 

thing  in  it  would  need  an  explanation  if  you  engage  her,  and 
that  is  what  does  she  mean  by  holidays?  Would  she  expect 
to  go  to  Cambridge  twice  a  year,  and  for  how  loxg?  A  week 
or  fortnight,  say  a  fortnight  once  a  year,  we  could  not 
object  to.  But  longer  or  more  frequently  would  not  be  easily 
managed.  What  do  you  think?  That  is  my  mind.  Laundress 
of  course  goes  in  at  our  offer.  ...  I  hope  she  understands 
what  we  expect.  You  must  tell  her  that  it  is  Leeds  where  we 
reside  if  you  engage  her.  But  you  must  have  an  understand- 
ing about  holidays.  I  don't  dislike  the  tone  of  her  letter,  it  is 
like  that  of  one  who  has  seen  something  of  the  world. 

...  I  am  sorry  beyond  measure  about  your  toothache. 
Could  any  other  dentist  help  you? 

He  goe.s  to  Nottingham  and  sees  the  famous  Dr.  Paton, 
w^ho  needed  no  urging  on  his  visitor's  part  to  embrace  the 
idea  of  evangelistic  work  among  the  churches. 

He  read  me  an  extract  from  an  address  delivered  3  years 
ago,  before  the  Congregational  Union  of  the  West  Riding  of 
Yorkshire,  stating  that  the  setting  apart,  the  ordaining  of  three 
of  their  ministers,  suitable  men  to  visit  the  churches,  would  in 
his  estimation  be  one  of  the  greatest  boons  to  the  community. 

To  this  letter  there  is  an  interesting  postscript : 

Yours  is  just  to  hand.  You  acted  as  you  often,  almost  al- 
ways do,  like  a  good  brave  woman  with  Miss  C .     I  think 

you  did  just  right.  Never  mind  about  the  house.  Let  God 
provide  for  us.  He  has  led  us  wonderfully  —  often  by  a  way 
that  we  knew  not.  We  have  much  of  earth,  few  have  so  much. 
O  what  a  joy  that  we  two  hearts  beat  so  lovingly  and  truly 


3CX)  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

to  each  other.     Think  of  that.     And  our  children ;  bless  them, 
and  our  usefulness,  and  by  and  by  our  Heaven. 

Back  in  Sheffield  he  writes  to  her  at  the  end  of  November : 

I  am  grieved  beyond  measure  that  you  are  so  poorly.  What 
is  to  be  done?  Would  not  a  change,  entire  change,  be  useful? 
Suppose  you  were  to  get  right  off,  not  to  work,  but  to  rest  a 
few  days.  H  you  could  take  a  service  you  would  be  treated 
very  considerately  and  kindly  at  Hartlepool.  London  is  such 
a  long  way.  The  journey  would  be  fatiguing,  and  then  you 
would  feel  the  house  smaller.  And  mother  having  no  servant, 
it  always  pains  me  to  see  her  driving  ahead  and  groaning  amid 
her  determined  energies.  I  am  really  concerned  about  this 
sleeplessness.  You  must  rest  next  week.  Don't  let  little  things 
put  you  about.  All  will  be  well.  Three  or  six  months  ago 
there  was  some  apparent  reason  for  anxiety.  Now,  our  way 
is  at  least  open,  wide  open,  for  a  supply  of  our  temporal  need 
and  it  may  be  for  an  abundant  supply  of  it.  If  the  Lord  does 
open  my  way  with  the  Independents  or  if  He  does  continue  to 
open  our  way  to  labour  and  to  secure  the  income  we  have  had 
the  last  two  months,  I  will  have  a  house  in  which  you  can  have 
some  quiet,  if  I  pay  £50  rent  for  it. 

And  we  will  have  a  governess  too  with  some  heart  and  con- 
science, if  we  go  on  changing  one  per  month  for  10  years. 
What  a  heathen  trick  of  Miss  C.  Well!  I  am  not  sorry  in 
one  respect ;  it  has  settled  you  on  the  propriety  of  letting  her 
go.  We  have  not  regretted  parting  with  any  of  the  lot  yet. 
The  smooth-tongued  shams  and  hypocrisies.  But  look  up.  I 
think  you  err  in  not  diverting  your  attention  by  reading.  Here 
is  the  difference  between  us,  and  it  may  have  something  to  do 
with  my  standing  the  wear  and  tear.  I  suffer  my  mind  to  be 
diverted  for  a  season  at  least  by  prayer  or  books.  You  must 
be  always  at  work.  A  change  of  mental  occupation  is  rest 
for  the  mind.  When  /  come  home  I  divert  your  attention. 
Could  you  not  let  some  book  do  the  same?  I  send  you  the 
W.T.  Look  it  through.  Read  the  article  on  Disraeli's  speech. 
I  will  enquire  for  a  library  and  get  you  a  book  when  I  come. 
Your  mind  preys  on  itself. 

Now  I  do  not  think  that  since  we  left  Cornwall  we  have 
had  such  reason  for  gratitude  and  contentment  as  we  have 
now.  With  care  we  can  earn  all  the  money  we  need.  Our 
children  are  in  health.  We  are  saved,  so  far,  from  those 
gloomy  visits  to  the  churchyard  which  so  many  other  families 
have  to  pay.  And  we  have  many  many  many  other  mercies. 
And  we  have  that  which  is  most  precious  of  all  that  is  human, 
our  own  zvarm,  sympathetic,  thorough,  intelligent,  well- 
grounded  confidence  in  and  affection  for  each  other.     Our  love 


xix]  WILDERNESS  301 

has  not  been  merely  an  emotion,  but  is  indeed  and  of  a  truth  an 
affection.  Bear  in  mind  Finney's  distinction  between  the  two 
words. 

The  optimism  of  this  letter  is  characteristic.  Here  is  a 
man  separated  from  his  wife  and  children,  living  in  lodg- 
ings, sparing  every  penny,  grudging  every  expense  upon 
himself,  travelling  to  and  fro,  working  furiously  in  public, 
and  never  sure  of  an  hour's  privacy  or  next  week's  bread; 
here  is  a  man,  we  say,  situated  as  gloomily  and  wretchedly 
as  this,  writing  encouragingly  to  his  wife  of  "  mercies," 
making  the  proud  boast  that  he  will  take  a  house  for  her  if 
he  has  to  pay  £50  a  year  for  it,  and  looking  without  fear  and 
without  anxiety  into  his  future.  One  admires  his  optimism, 
but  one's  sympathies  are  with  Mrs.  Booth. 

"  Cheer  up!  "  he  writes  to  her  again.  "  All  wall  be  well. 
Whatever  you  do,  don't  be  anxious."  He  speaks  of  a  good 
meeting  he  has  just  conducted  and  says,  "  I  like  the  folk, 
hunihle  and  emotional."  Then  the  governess  crops  up 
again,  and  we  see  how  his  mind  is  concerned  about  his 
children's  education,  and  the  virtues  he  expects  to  get  for 
£20: 

I  cannot  .  .  .  give  you  any  advice  respecting  Miss  C dif- 
ferent to  that  already  given.  £20  ought  to  produce  something 
more  suitable  to  our  wants.  I  want  Ballington  teaching,  and 
the  little  ones,  and  if  we  give  that  sum  we  will  have  some  one 
who    will    do   it.     Enquire   about    Willie's    Latin.     Tell    Miss 

C she  must  see  he  is  ready  with  it.     He  ought  to  have  a 

lesson  daily. 

It  seems  that  he  had  published  a  book  of  hymns,  and  was 
experiencing  trouble  with  the  publishers ;  but  he  takes  mat- 
ters into  his  own  hands,  acts  as  his  own  traveller,  and  sells 
500  copies  to  a  Sheffield  bookseller.  "  So  there  is  just  a 
chance  for  me  yet!  "  he  adds,  half  humorously,  half  hope- 
fully. 

"  What  folly  in  you,"  he  writes  to  his  wife,  "  to  do 
without  a  fire.  It  is  not  in  these  little  things  that  our  cash 
goes,  but  if  it  were,  surely  you  can  afford  a  bit  of  fire  while 
you  are  at  home.  Have  your  fire  upstairs."  He  tells  her 
that  it  will  do  quite  as  well  if  she  writes  to  him  in  pencil. 
"  Let  Willie  get  you  a  good  H.B.   from  Bean's,  not  less 


302  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

than  2d.,  and  you  can  write  more  easily  than  with  pen 
and  ink."  Her  weak  spine  involved  much  lying  on  her 
back.  He  expresses  sorrow  that  he  cannot  send  her  any 
cheering  news.  "  Most  people  have  had  difficulties  in  ob- 
taining anything  great  on  which  their  hearts  have  been  set. 
I  hope  you  will  get  comfort  from  some  source.  I  should 
like  it  to  be  from  above.     God  will  help  us." 

Mrs.  Booth  meets  with  bad  treatment  in  her  public  work, 
and  he  writes  to  comfort  her : 

I  cannot  understand  how  they  can  possibly  treat  you  and 
the  work  of  God  thus.  If  it  had  been  me,  I  should  have 
scarcely  marvelled,  but  you  —  it  is  absolutely  confounding. 
...  I  am  sure  I  hardly  know  what  to  advise.  That  which 
comes  first  is  give  them  up  and  do  it  with  a  high  hand.  Then 
second  thoughts  say,  that  ten  years  hence  the  treatment  we 
personally  receive  from  these  "  leaders  "  (in  religion)  will  be 
as  NOTHING.  We  shall  all  but  have  forgotten  it.  But  our 
treatment  of  the  ivork  of  God,  our  forbearance  and  humility 
and  meekness  and  perseverance  under  and  in  the  face  of  diffi- 
culties will  be  everything. 

In  another  letter  he  writes  dismally  of  all  the  various 
moneys  he  owes,  "  in  all  some  £85,  and  then  these  other 
things  not  included,"  and  adds : 

I  have  not  wherewith  to  meet  it.  But  I  suppose  I  shall 
have,  some  way  or  other.  It  certainly  looks  rather  stiff.  But 
it  will  turn  out  all  right.  ...  I  am  going  to  study  economy 
with  all  my  might !  I  have  those  new  kid  gloves  on  the  mantel- 
piece to  be  ever  before  my  eyes  as  a  standing  rebuke  to  my 
extravagance! 

He  concludes  with  the  wishful  exclamation,  "  Brighter 
days!"  and  adds  a  postscript,  "O  that  I  was  worthy  of 
you !  " 

The  subject  of  the  troublesome  governess  occurs  in  an- 
other letter  full  of  dissatisfaction  with  his  meeting: 

We  had  a  good  many  people  to  tea,  but  a  poor  meeting.  I 
think  it  is  the  last  speechifying  meeting  I  will  have.  I  had 
not  time  or  power  to  say  anything,  and  people  who  had  next 
to  nothing  to  do  petted  and  patted  the  people,  and  no  good  was 
done  by  such  a  service  that  I  could  see.  In  future  I  will 
regard   such   meetings   as   being  as   much  mine  as   the   other 


XIX]  WILDERNESS  303 

services.  I  will  preside  over  them  and  wind  them  up  in  the 
good  old  soul-saving  fashion  of  my  other  meetings.  Several 
little  things  have  occurred  to  disturb  my  equanimity. 

I  am  right  glad,  heartily  and  honestly  glad,  that  Miss  C.  is 
going.  She  was  not  born  for  such  a  service  as  we  require. 
Don't  be  concerned.  She  will  easily  get  another  place.  .  .  . 
Don't  be  put  about  concerning  anything. 

.  .  .  My  only  fear  is  that  Mr.  Paton  is  an  enthusiast  in  his 
way  as  far  ahead  of  Independentism  in  spirit  and  discernment 
and  desire  for  aggressive  spirituality  as  I  am  myself.  How- 
ever in  a  quiet  way  we  will  try.  John  Unwin  was  with  us 
last  night.  I  like  him  less  and  less.  It  is  strange,  I  could 
have  embraced  Mr.  Paton  .  .  .  but  some  of  these  revivalists, 
I  dislike  them  the  more  I  see  of  them.  I  am  a  strange  being, 
perhaps.  I  wonder  if  I  appear  as  bragging  and  mechanical  in 
my  revivalism  as  some  of  these  folks  do. 

.  .  .  O  for  more  of  the  Divine  to  mingle  with  the  human ! 
I  come  far  short  just  now. 

After  a  flying  visit  to  his  family  he  writes  to  her : 

Your  tearful  loving  face  is  ever  before  me.  I  do  so  want 
to  receive  a  line  to  know  how  you  are.  I  do  hope  you  will 
be  cheered  with  a  good  day.  I  had  a  long  weary  journey,  but 
I  got  my  head  into  the  book  and  it  beguiled  the  tedium  and 
withdrew  my  attention  from  the  coarsish  company  and  con- 
verse around  me. 

He  tells  of  meetings  and  love  feasts,  offers  to  bring  some 
new  blankets  that  she  requires,  and  complains  of  being 
bothered  by  his  underclothing — "the  drawers  being  so 
short."  All  through  his  letters  runs  this  strain  of  domes- 
ticity; there  is  nothing  too  small  in  the  details  of  their 
domestic  economy  for  his  care  and  attention.  Another 
letter  is  full  of  advice  concerning  dentists;  he  lays  stress 
on  the  wisdom  of  going  to  a  man  who  is  abreast  of  the 
times,  not  old-fashioned. 

In  the  letters  written  on  his  missionary  journeys,  when 
Sheffield  was  his  headquarters,  we  are  introduced  every 
now  and  then  to  the  inconveniences  of  a  travelling  revivalist. 
For  example,  he  writes  from  Bury : 

.  .  .  left  luggage  at  station  and  walked  to  Mr.  Brown's,  a 
mile  distant ;  found  him  kind ;  had  tea,  and  at  nearly  7  he 
informed  me  that  he  had  a  meeting  at  7,  and  he  would  take  me 


304  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

where  he  thought  I  could  get  lodgings  and  be  comfortable. 
He  said  he  had  two  parties  in  his  eye  but  did  not  knozv  whether 
they  could  accommodate  me.  When  we  got  to  the  houses  both 
wives  were  from  home  and  therefore  I  could  not  be  entertained 
there.  Here  was  a  fix !  It  was  dark  and  rainy.  After  mak- 
ing an  enquiry  or  two,  he  gave  in  and  took  me  to  the  house 
of  a  friend  and  begged  me  accommodation  until  Monday,  and 
here  I  am.  He  was  to  call  this  morning.  I  have  been  ex- 
pecting him  every  minute  and  he  has  not  appeared  yet.  Still, 
he  is  a  very  nice  man. 

A  fit  of  depression  seized  him  here.  He  found  the  people 
"  cold  as  an  ice-house."  He  is  "  much  disheartened."  He 
goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "  I  don't  feel  disposed  to  persevere 
much  longer  in  a  life  the  results  of  which  are  really  so 
trifling."  He  goes  on  to  say,  sick  at  heart  and  suffering 
in  body: 

I  need  not  tell  you  how  I  should  like  to  see  you  this  morn- 
ing, and  how  lonely  life  is  without  your  precious  society.  All 
the  people  appear  only  just  tolerable.  I  don't  know  how  it  is, 
but  quick  interesting  folks  seem  very  rarely  to  cross  my 
path.  My  tooth  acts  very  well,  saving  that  I  feel  as  though 
I  had  some  drying  mineral  in  my  mouth.  I  hope  it  is  not  the 
metal. 

Give  my  love  to  my  dear  children.  Bless  them.  I  think 
much  about  them.  Dear  Katie's  merry  voice  and  laughter  are 
often  ringing  in  my  ears  and  so  are  the  pretty  ways  and  tricks 
of  them  all.  I  forget  their  troublesomeness  when  away  from 
them. 

At  Hyde,  near  Manchester,  the  darkness  covers  him  and 
he  is  filled  with  despair.  He  speaks  of  a  few  conversions, 
and  then  cries  out,  "  But  somehow  my  truth  does  not  ap- 
pear calculated  for  immediate  results.  I  have  not  personally 
the  confidence  in  it  I  once  had.  Perhaps  that  is  it.  I  must 
try  again."  And  then  after  telling  how  he  lay  sleepless 
through  the  night,  he  goes  on: 

I  wish  I  were  in  a  more  satisfactory  state  spiritually.  I  feel 
almost  dead;  powerless.  Consequently  my  preaching  and 
praying  in  public  has  but  little  effect  on  the  people.  But  wish- 
ing produces  no  improvement.  O  that  God  would  come  and 
give  me  some  new  light  or  some  new  power.  Will  you  pray 
for  me?  I  never  felt  less  emotion  and  power  in  prayer  in  my 
life.     And  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  to  do.  .  .  . 


xix]  WILDERNESS  305 

It  is  no  use  me  talking  about  my  rebellion  of  heart  against 
this  separation.  1  must  submit  and  say,  Thy  will  be  done.  1 
wish  I  was  sure  that  it  was  His  ivill.  As  I  turned  into  my 
lonely  lodgings  last  night  a  young  gentleman  with  a  lady  on 
his  arm  knocked  at  the  door  of  the  house  opposite  mine,  and  1 
could  not  help  asking  why  I  was  parted  from  my  young  and 
precious  wife.  I  know  why,  and  for  a  season  it  must  be  so 
—  perhaps  we  shall  grow  accustomed  to  it  and  not  feel  it  so 
much.  I  do  feel  a  measure  of  comfort  from  the  thought 
that  we  are  securing  our  own  livelihood  by  it  and  not  hanging 
on  to  any  one.  That  thought  has  been  like  a  canker  at  my 
heart  of  late.  It  must  not  be  after  that  fashion.  We  will 
work  and  then  rest  together  and  then  work  again. 

He  calls  this  letter  of  desolation  and  heroic  resolve,  "  a 
weary  rigmarole,"  and  then  declares,  "  such  has  been  the 
state  of  my  head  and  nerves  the  last  three  weeks  that  I 
have  seemed  to  live  in  a  sort  of  dream."  His  only  comfort 
just  now  is  a  "  family  group,"  which  he  places  on  the 
mantelpiece  of  his  lodgings  — "  a  poor  substitute,  but  the 
best  I  have." 

In  another  letter  from  Hyde  the  same  dissatisfaction  is 
expressed : 

...  I  feel  so  low  and  powerless  spiritually.  It  is  the  Divine 
we  both  need.  But  you  far  exceed  me  in  the  influence  you 
can  command  in  a  service.  I  should  much  like  to  spend  the 
evening  with  you  all  alone,  far  away  from  all  excitement  and 
disturbance,  where  we  could  commune  with  each  other's  heart 
and  be  still. 

Then  he  speaks  of  the  "  precious  children  " : 

Let  Willie  do  something  every  day  in  cyphering,  if  it  be  a 
compound  addition  and  subtraction.  .  .  .  Don't  bother  about 
anything  else  but  your  work,  and  giving  them  a  little  lesson  or 
two.      We  must  get  some  one  to  sew. 

A  governess  is  found  in  the  person  of  a  Miss  McBean,  and 
he  writes : 

I  am  delighted  with  your  account  of  Miss  McBean.  Strange 
and  good  that  she  should  have  heard  of  us.  Of  course  she  had 
an  idea  of  what  she  was  coming  to.  Hope  the  children  will  be 
good  and  respectful.  Tell  her  she  must  exact  uniform  obedi- 
ence. Tell  Willie  that  if  he  does  not  obey  and  set  his  brothers 
and  sisters  an  example  in  this  matter  he  must  prepare  not  only 


3o6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

to  lose  his  dog,  but  to  live  in  the  attic  while  I  am  at  home,  for  / 
zvill  not  see  him.  On  the  other  hand,  if  they  are  good  and 
obedient,  they  shall  have  a  party  again  on  the  Friday  evening, 
and  have  Patience,  etc.,  and  we  will  have  a  great  many  more 
nuts  and  have  some  nice  games,  etc. 

This  extract,  we  think,  is  not  merely  typical  of  mid- 
Victorian  severity  in  the  matter  of  managing  children,  but 
it  is  in  some  way  characteristic  of  William  Booth's  theol- 
ogy, a  theology  which  never  doubted  the  moral  advantage 
of  ofifering  a  reward  with  the  one  hand  and  pointing  out 
grievous  consequences  for  disobedience  with  the  other. 

It  will  be  seen  later  on  that  William  Booth's  children 
were  very  fond  of  him,  and  it  is  quite  certain  that  in  his 
own  way  he  was  very  fond  of  them.  But  we  find  in  some 
of  these  letters  expressions  of  regret  that  he  had  forgotten 
to  say  good-bye  to  them  on  one  of  his  visits,  or,  in  sending 
a  kiss  to  this  or  that  child,  he  adds,  "  I  forget  whether  I 
said  good-bye  to  him."  One  would  not  speak  of  him,  at 
this  time,  as  a  father  who  adored  his  children ;  and  he  w^as 
sometimes  irritated  and  aggravated  by  their  noise;  never- 
theless, the  children  showed  a  very  true  devotion  to  him, 
and  in  later  life  this  afifectionate  and  reverential  feeling 
for  the  tall,  gaunt,  dark-bearded  man  warmed  into  deep 
and  generous  love.  In  the  case  of  Willie,  threatened  with 
the  attic  and  the  loss  of  his  dog,  the  father  was  to  find  the 
most  loving  and  faithful  companion  of  his  later  and 
widowed  years. 

•  Here  and  there  in  those  letters  of  the  wandering  preacher 
occur  references  to  the  children  which  are  charged  with 
tenderest  affection  and  consideration ;  in  his  own  way  —  a 
rough,  strong,  emotional,  unsentimental  way  —  he  was  ex- 
tremely fond  of  them ;  but  he  is  too  absorbed  by  his  work, 
too  distracted  by  anxieties,  and  too  often  tried  by  physical 
pain  to  give  them  the  whole  and  perfect  love  of  a  father's 
heart.  To  Mrs.  Booth  was  committed  the  care  of  the 
family,  and  her  character,  at  any  rate  in  these  early  years, 
was  the  supreme  and  formative  influence  in  their  lives. 
Here,  for  instance,  is  a  passage  which  shows  how  affec- 
tionately the  father  thought  of  his  children,  and  how  thor- 
oughly he  comprehended  that  they  belonged  to  their  mother : 

Bless  my  darlings  for  me.     Call  them  in  and  put  your  hands 


XIX]  WILDERNESS  307 

on  their  heads  and  bless  them  for  their  papa.  In  passing  a 
shop  this  morning  I  saw  a  large  wooden  horse.  I  almost 
jumped  and  involuntarily  exclaimed,  that  is  the  thing  for  my 
dear  little  Bertie.  I  saw  one  of  Tom  Fenton's  and  one  of 
George  Hovey's  boys.  But  they  don't  touch  yours.  Yours 
are  the  children !  O  may  they  grow  up  to  honour  their  Maker 
and  Redeemer. 

It  was  in  this  year,  1864,  that  their  sixth  child  was  born, 
Marian,  who,  following  an  accident,  developed  serious 
physical  weakness,  and  was  only  reared  to  an  invalid  life 
with  considerable  difficulty. 


CHAPTER  XX 

«. 

THE    MOVE    TO    LONDON 
1865 

By  a  strange  chance  it  was  Mrs.  Booth  who  led  the  way  out 
of  the  wilderness.  It  was  she,  and  not  William  Booth,  who 
laid  the  first  stone  of  the  Salvation  Army. 

While  they  were  still  living  in  Leeds,  and  he  was  still 
thinking  of  taking  a  house  in  Sheffield,  and  establishing  his 
family  there,  Mrs.  Booth  was  invited  to  Rotherhithe  in 
South  East  London,  and  thither  she  journeyed,  in  1865,  to 
conduct  a  brief  mission.  What  she  saw  of  the  poor  people, 
and  particularly  the  work  being  done  by  the  Midnight 
Movement  to  restore  fallen  women,  made  an  instant  and 
overwhelming  appeal  to  her  heart.  She  resolved  at  once 
that  here  was  the  sphere  for  which  she  had  prayed  and 
longed  ever  since  the  Conference  in  Liverpool. 

It  is  remarkable  that  some  little  time  before  this  mission 
in  Rotherhithe  was  even  suggested,  Mrs.  Booth  wrote  a 
letter  to  her  mother  in  which  she  prophesied  the  new  de- 
parture. After  speaking  of  the  coldness  of  the  churches 
and  the  hardness  of  the  world,  she  said: 

Well,  we  must  labour  and  wait  a  little  longer,  it  may  be  the 
clouds  will  break  and  surround  us  with  sunshine.  Anyway, 
God  lives  above  the  clouds,  and  He  will  direct  our  path.  If 
the  present  effort  disappoints  us  I  shall  feel  quite  tired  of 
tugging  with  the  churches,  and  shall  insist  on  William  taking 
a  hall  or  theatre  somewhere.  I  believe  the  Lord  will  thrust 
him  into  that  sphere  yet.  We  can't  get  at  the  masses  in  the 
chapels.  ...  I  think  I  shall  come  and  try  in  London  before 
long. 

Mrs.  Booth's  mission  was  a  considerable  success.  In 
some  measure  this  success  was  no  doubt  due  to  the  interest 
created  by  a  "  Female  Minister  " ;  bills  were  circulated  with 
the  attractive  invitation,  "  Come  and  Hear  a  Woman 
Preach  " ;  notices  of  her  mission  were  published  in  some 

308 


[CHAP.  XX]  THE  MOVE  TO  LONDON 


309 


of  the  religious  papers;  crowds  flocked  to  hear  her  as  a 
new  excitement.  But  the  real  cause  of  this  unquestionable 
success  was  the  profound  spiritual  apprehension  which  in- 
spired her  oratory.  No  one  who  heard  Mrs.  Booth  speak 
could  fail  to  be  moved  by  her  eloquence  —  an  eloquence 
entirely  natural  and  entirely  free  from  rhetoric.  She  spoke 
with  an  overwhelming  persuasiveness  because  she  was 
overwhelmingly  persuaded  of  the  truth  of  Christianity,  and 
because  she  felt  in  the  depths  of  her  heart  and  in  every 
fibre  of  her  sensitive  being  the  frightful  sufferings,  the  de- 
structive miseries,  and  the  unutterable  anguish  of  souls 
imprisoned  in  the  darkness  of  sin.  Her  mind  —  thanks,  no 
doubt,  in  some  measure  to  the  influence  of  William  Booth 
—  was  clean  of  Pharisaism.  There  was  nothing  there 
which  was  narrow  or  mean.  As  for  her  heart,  it  was  the 
heart  of  a  woman  to  whom  love  and  compassion  are  the 
very  breath  of  existence.  A  brief  account  in  The  Wcs- 
leyan  Times  of  a  meeting  of  the  Midnight  Movement,  in 
w'hich  ]\Irs.  Booth  addressed  a  number  of  fallen  women, 
will  furnish  some  idea  of  her  breadth  of  view : 

The  address  of  Mrs.  Booth  was  inimitable,  pointed,  evan- 
gelical, impressive,  and  delivered  in  a  most  earnest,  sympathetic 
manner,  bringing  tears  from  many,  and  securing  the  closest  at- 
tention from  all.  She  identified  herself  with  them  as  a  fellow- 
sinner,  showing  that  if  they  supposed  her  better  than  them- 
selves it  was  a  mistake,  since  all  had  sinned  against  God. 
This,  she  explained,  was  the  main  point,  and  not  the  particu- 
lar sin  of  which  they  might  be  guilty.  Then  the  Saviour  was 
exhibited  as  waiting  to  save  all  alike,  and  the  speaker  urged  all 
of  them,  by  a  variety  of  reasons,  to  immediate  decision. 
Finally,  the  consequence  of  neglecting  or  accepting  the  offer  of 
mercy  was  set  before  them,  and  they  were  encouraged  by  the 
relation  of  the  conversion  of  some  of  the  most  degraded  char- 
acters whom  Mrs.  Booth  and  her  husband  had  been  instru- 
mental in  bringing  to  Christ. 

We  are  told  by  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker  that  the 
sight  of  these  victims  of  sin  and  misery  deeply  stirred  the 
heart  of  Mrs.  Booth.  "  Not  only,"  he  says,  "  did  she  view 
with  compassion  their  unhappy  condition,  but  her  indig- 
nation knew  no  bounds  that  public  opinion  should  wink  at 
such  cruel  slavery,  while  professing  to  be  shocked  at  the 


3IO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

scarcely  more  inhuman  brutality  that  bore  the  name  in  other 
lands." 

The  paltriness  of  the  efforts  put  forth  to  minimize  the  evil 
staggered  her,  and  the  gross  inequality  with  which  society 
meted  out  its  punishments  to  the  weaker  sex,  allowing  the  par- 
ticipators in  the  vice  to  escape  with  impunity,  incurred  her 
scathing  denunciations. 

What  she  saw  in  London  greatly  influenced  Mrs.  Booth 
to  make  the  metropolis  her  centre,  although  her  idea  was 
still  to  work  through  existing  religious  agencies.  With  this 
end  in  view  they  moved  house  to  Hammersmith  (1865). 
It  was  not  Mrs.  Booth,  but  William  Booth,  who  conceived 
the  idea  of  going  into  the  streets  of  East  London,  penniless 
and  unsupported,  with  his  message  of  salvation. 

The  anxiety  and  depression  which  had  so  frequently 
burdened  the  mind  of  William  Booth  during  the  last  few 
years  arose  in  no  small  degree  from  disappointment  at  the 
feeble  and  trifling  after-effects  of  conversion.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  he  wrote  despairful  letters  to  his  wife 
during  the  Cornish  Revival;  that  is  to  say  at  a  time  when 
he  was  drav/ing  enormous  crowds  to  hear  him  preach,  and 
when  thousands  of  people  were  professing  conversion.  He 
was  not  dejected  by  the  failure  of  his  oratory;  he  was  not 
inclined  to  doubt  his  mission  because  nobody  came  to  hear 
him.  He  was  oppressed  by  what  he  saw  in  the  lives  of 
some  of  his  converts  after  conversion.  He  thought  that 
so  great  a  miracle  as  new  birth  ought  to  culminate  in  as 
great  a  miracle  —  a  new  life.  But  these  chapel  people 
remained,  so  far  as  he  could  judge,  very  much  what  they 
were  before  conversion.  At  any  rate,  they  did  not  become 
missionaries;  they  did  not  make  the  great  sacrifice;  they 
did  not  touch  the  lives  of  other  people  with  the  attraction 
of  Christ.  Respectability,  we  must  understand,  did  not 
satisfy  William  Booth,  He  wanted  to  change  the  whole 
world,  but  he  scarcely  succeeded  in  changing  a  few  people. 
Converts  told  him  that  they  were  changed,  but  he  himself, 
in  too  many  cases,  could  see  no  alteration  in  their  char- 
acters or  their  way  of  living.  It  was  because  his  ideal  was 
so  lofty  that  he  was  thus  dissatisfied;  and  because  he  was 
so  humble  that  he  rather  blamed  himself  than  his  converts. 


XX]  THE  MOVE  TO  LONDON  311 

He  felt  that  something  must  be  wrong  in  him;  he  doubted 
his  vocation ;  he  faced  the  idea  of  going  to  London  in  search 
of  a  secretaryship. 

We  shall  see  that  something  of  the  same  doubt  harassed 
his  mind  for  several  years  in  London.     He  made  converts 
of  the  most  degraded  people  and  sent  them  to  their  churches 
and  chapels;  but  many  of  them  relapsed,  or  became  formal, 
or  did  nothing  to  hasten  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.     It  was  1 
a  matter  of  more  than  ten  years,  after  his  coming  to  Lon-   '        -^ 
don,  before  William  Booth  perceived  that  the  one  way  in   1     -^ 
ivhich  he  could  lastingly  change  men  and  zvomen  was  to    1 
make  them,  frotn  the  moment  of  their  conversion,  seekers    \ 
and  savers  of  the  lost. 

While  Mrs.  Booth  was  in  London,  her  husband  was 
conducting  a  mission  in  Louth,  Lincolnshire,  and  from 
there  he  writes  to  her  one  or  two  characteristic  letters,  in 
which  one  can  see  that  the  idea  of  London  is  in  his  mind, 
although  he  is  wholly  unaware  of  the  imminence  of  the 
change  which  is  to  transform  his  life.  But  the  chief  value 
of  these  letters,  most  of  them  unfortunately  incomplete,  is 
the  evidence  they  afford  of  the  financial  situation  and  the 
difficult  domestic  life  of  these  remarkable  people. 

One  of  the  letters,  written  just  before  Mrs.  Booth  left 
for  London,  and  addressed  to  "  My  dear  little  disconsolate 
Wife,"  shows  that  she  was  cast  down  by  the  refusal  of 
some  church  to  accept  her  ministry.  "  I  am  sorry  indeed 
that  they  have  declined,"  he  writes.  "  I  don't  like  being 
declined  anyway.  I  am  afraid  the  parson  is  at  the  bottom 
of  it.  They  will  want  you  yet,  I  doubt  not."  The  letter 
proceeds  later  on : 

When  I  talk  about  not  giving  way  to  feeling  I  don't  mean 
hardening  our  hearts.  I  only  mean  the  bringing  our  minds  as 
far  as  we  can  in  the  present  to  our  circumstances.  What  could 
I  do  all  alone  here  sitting  down  to  fret  and  complain?  I  have 
not  a  soul  to  whom  I  can  talk  about  you.  I  do  very  largely 
tell  everybody  I  meet  all  I  can  well  edge  in ;  and  then  again, 
fretting  makes  no  better  of  it,  so  I  stick  to  my  writing  and 
work.  You  have  the  darling  children,  and  are  doing  work  for 
eternity  with  them,  and  the  way  will  I  trust  open  for  us  to  be 
together  again  and  that  right  early.  If  you  get  at  work  in 
London  I  will  try  and  make  my  way  there  and  see  how  I 
succeed.     Don't  say  or  think  any  hard  things  of  me.     And 


312  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

then  again,  about  your  poor  back,  what  a  pity  to  make  it  bad 
with  sewing.  Take  care  of  yourself ;  take  and  practise  the 
advice  you  give  me.  Get  ready  for  work.  Let  us  try  again 
for  the  glory  of  God.  The  Lord  is  using  me  here  and  bring- 
ing up  the  Church.  I  have  been  at  them  all  the  week,  and 
the  result  is  a  great  spirit  of  enquiry  and  reconsecration. 
Many  of  the  people  have,  I  believe,  really  and  truly  conse- 
crated, and  with  many  more  there  is  a  healthful  enquiry  after 
more  of  God. 

Li  one  of  the  letters  addressed  to  Mrs.  Booth  in  London 
occurs  this  interesting  passage : 

Mr.  Shadford  spoke  very  kindly  to  me  after  you  left.  They 
both  sympathized  with  us  very  much,  I  believe.  He  reminded 
me  all  the  way  through  of  the  old  gentleman  who  met  and 
talked  to  George  at  the  Hotel  there  when  he  was  running  away 
in  Uncle  Tom.  As  we  went  down  to  the  station  I  said,  "  I 
forgot  to  pay  for  the  things  I  had  out  of  the  shop,  but  I  will 
give  it  you  at  the  station."  "  Why,"  he  said,  "  as  far  as  that 
I  have  a  £5  note  in  my  pocket  to  give  you  at  the  station,  and 
that  is  about  how  matters  stand  between  us  just  now."  With 
a  gentle  exhortation  to  all  reasonable  economy,  and  a  request 
twice  urged  that  if  at  any  time  we  were  in  any  difficulty  I  was 
to  write  him  and  he  would  help  us,  he  passed  the  bit  of  dirty 
paper  to  me  which  I  received  gratefully  and  with  a  proper 
measure  of  thanksgiving.  ...  I  shall  send  him  a  line  from 
here  and  you  must  just  write  him  a  page.  You  heard  how 
they  pitched  into  my  writing  and  praised  yours.  There,  as 
elsewhere,  I  must  decrease  and  you  increase !  I  enclose  you 
two  halves,  and  send  the  other  two  to  father.  Put  them  to- 
gether and  let  father  deposit  them  with  the  cheque  at  the 
Alliance  Bank.  .  .  . 

When  you  told  me  that  you  had  nothing  left.  I  forgot  the 
Post  Office  Order.  You  surely  did  not  spend  that  £6  as  zvell 
as  all  the  cash  I  left  beJiind.  Well,  I  am  determined  to  econo- 
mise, and  I  shall  write  Mary  to  put  the  screw  on,  and  I  am 
putting  it  on  here  myself.  I  will  either  stop  this  living  at  the 
rate  of  £6  a  week  or  I  will  know  the  reason.^  It  mortifies  me 
beyond  measure.  I  won't  blame  you.  I  have  very  possibly 
spent  much  lately.  Those  forks,  etc.,  we  could  have  done 
without.  If  mother  proposes  to  pay  for  the  spoons,  let  her; 
and  she  shall  have  that  teapot.  If  I  got  her  initials  on  it,  it 
would  look  something,  and  please  her.  You  might  bring  it 
about,  some  way  or  other.  It  won't  become  our  table  exactly 
for  the  present. 

1  £6  a  week,  for  a  family  where  the  father  and  mother  are  constantly 
away  living  in  lodgings,  does  not  seem  a  very  extravagant  allowance. 


XX]  THE  MOVE  TO  LONDON  313 

We  find  him  confessing  to  extravagance  in  the  next  let- 
ter: 

I  paid  Miller  ^3  :  8  :  o  yesterday.  I  bought  two  books  from 
him  for  2/6.  One  by  Calvin  Cotton  on  Revivals,  and  a  good 
School  History  of  Greece  for  Willie  and  the  children  in  turns. 
He  has  2  vols,  of  Macaulay's  History  of  England,  the  3rd  and 
4th.  He  offers  them  for  5/.  Should  I  have  them?  I  sup- 
pose not.     They  are  good  reading  for  a  leisure  hour. 

Later  on  in  the  same  letter  we  read : 

I  have  been  very  poorly  ever  since  I  came  home.  I  have 
had  to  shut  out  the  children  since  breakfast.  My  head  has 
been  so  bad ;  it  is  a  little  better.  I  went  supperless  to  bed  at 
10  o'clock,  in  the  hope  of  getting  a  refreshing  night's  sleep, 
but  was  disappointed.  I  was  awake  very  early,  feeling  dread- 
fully. 

Then  he  refers  to  her  meetings  in  London : 

I  am  glad  you  had  so  good  a  meeting.  I  have  no  doubt 
about  your  adaptation  for  that  sphere,  or  for  almost  any 
sphere,  and  I  could  never  stand  in  your  way  or  prohibit  your 
labouring  when  .  .  .  you  could  do  so  much  good.  This  I 
settled  years  ago.  .  .  .  All  your  talk  about  my  adaptation 
shows  how  ignorant  you  are  of  the  kind  of  men  who  are  now 
at  work,  specially  in  London,  and  also  of  my  "  superficiality  " ; 
but  it  is  of  no  use  talking  on  this  theme !  I  will  come  to  Lon- 
don, and  once  more.  ... 

Here,  unfortunately,  the  sheet  ends,  and  the  rest  of  the 
letter  is  not  to  be  found.  The  Booths  moved  to  London 
in  this  year,  and  set  up  house  in  Hammersmith. 

Besides  the  money  paid  to  them  out  of  the  collections 
taken  at  their  meetings,  they  were  able  to  secure  a  small 
additional  income  by  the  sale  of  their  pamphlets  and  books. 
William  Booth  managed  his  wife's  pamphlets  as  well  as 
his  own  Song  Book,  and  in  one  of  his  letters  he  says  of  a 
sum  of  money,  which  is  either  £5  or  £10,  that  "  it  is  not 
more,  nor  as  much  by  pounds,  as  I  have  received  for  books 
the  last  month,"  It  would  seem  that  by  their  missions, 
their  sale  of  books,  and  with  the  help  of  one  or  two  well- 
ofif  sympathizers,  they  were  now  earning  some  three  or  four 
hundred  pounds  a  year,  but  precariously.  They  lived  with 
extreme  simplicity.     The  children  were  dressed  without  any 


314      THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH      [chap.xx] 

display.  Mrs.  Booth  was  one  of  those  very  capable  women 
who  can  find  time  for  household  work  side  by  side  with 
great  public  activity.  She  was  often  in  the  kitchen,  when 
William  Booth  would  come  to  consult  her,  he  sitting  on  the 
edge  of  the  table,  while  she,  with  her  hands  covered  in 
dough,  went  on  with  her  cake  making.  In  more  than  one  of 
her  letters  to  her  mother  she  begs  Mrs.  Mumford,  who  was 
an  industrious  needlewoman,  not  to  send  fine  clothes  for 
the  children.     For  example: 

Accept  my  warmest  thanks  for  the  little  frock  you  sent. 
We  like  it  very  much.  There  is  only  one  difficulty,  namely, 
it  is  too  smart!  I  shall  have  to  give  you  full  and  explicit  di- 
rections in  future  as  to  the  style,  trimming,  etc.,  for  we  really 
must  set  an  example  in  this  respect  worthy  of  imitation.  I 
feel  no  temptation  now  to  decorate  myself.  But  I  cannot  say 
the  same  about  my  children.  And  yet,  oh,  I  see  I  must  be 
decided,  and  come  out  from  among  the  fashion-worshipping, 
worldly  professors  around  me.     Lord,  help  me ! 

Not  only  did  Mrs.  Booth  manage  her  house  with  great 
thoroughness,  but,  in  order  to  meet  their  heavier  expenses 
in  London,  she  took  in  first  one  lodger,  and  afterwards, 
in  moving  into  a  larger  and  more  convenient  house,  two. 
It  is  almost  incredible  that  a  woman  so  weak  and  delicate, 
so  often  exposed  to  serious  physical  collapse,  and  so  fre- 
quently engaged  in  a  most  exhausting  form  of  public  work, 
should  have  found  time  to  superintend  the  education  of  her 
children,  to  practise  a  careful  domestic  economy,  and  to 
look  after  the  needs  of  a  large  household  including  a  couple 
of  lodgers.  But  Mr.  Bramwell  Booth,  who  perfectly  re- 
members this  time,  assures  me  that  his  mother  did  all 
these  things,  and  did  them  well. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

A   LADY  lodger's  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  BOOTHS'   HOME  LIFE 
1865-1867 

It  is  not  until  the  Booths  take  up  their  residence  in  Hackney 
—  where  their  daughter  Eva  was  born  —  that  we  are  able 
to  see  them  with  any  degree  of  clearness  in  the  intimacy  of 
domestic  life. 

One  of  the  ladies  who  went  to  lodge  with  them  in  1867 
was  Miss  Jane  Short,  whose  age  sits  lightly  upon  her,  whose 
memory  is  as  perfect  as  the  most  exacting  biographer  could 
wish,  and  who  is  happily  of  a  humorous  disposition,  with  no 
desire  in  the  world  to  exaggerate  the  remarkable  qualities  of 
her  dead  friends.  Very  often  as  she  speaks  of  the  Booth 
household  she  breaks  into  cheerful  laughter,  recognising  as 
shrewdly  as  any  practical  and  unimaginative  person  the 
eccentricity  of  that  family  life.  At  the  same  time,  her 
testimony  is  emphatic  to  the  nobility  of  the  Booths,  and  to 
the  reality  of  their  passionate  religious  zeal. 

"  To  tell  you  the  truth,"  she  informed  me  at  our  first 
meeting,  "  I  was  terribly  afraid  of  going  to  live  with  these 
dear  folk,  because  I  had  been  so  often  disappointed,  griev- 
ously disappointed,  in  religious  people.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  the  Booths  could  not  possibly  be  in  their  home  life 
what  they  were  in  their  preaching.  I  thought  I  should  see 
things  and  hear  things  which  would  distress  me;  I  could 
not  imagine  that  it  was  possible  for  them  to  live  their  ideals. 
You  see,  I  loved  them  so  well  that  I  quite  shrank  from  find- 
ing my  hero-worship  an  illusion." 

She  had  first  encountered  Mrs.  Booth  at  Margate,  where 
the  latter  was  conducting  a  Mission,  and  afterwards  had 
attended  some  of  the  preachings  in  the  East  End  of  London. 
Admiration  of  Mrs.  Booth  had  quickly  ripened  into  friend- 
ship, and  William  Booth  had  won  her  liveliest  sympathy 
and  her  utmost  enthusiasm  at  their  first  encounter. 

"  People  who  say  that  Mrs.  Booth  was  the  greater  of 

31S 


3i6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  two,"  declares  Miss  Short,  "  do  not  know  what  they  are 
talking  about.  Mrs.  Booth  was  a  very  able  woman,  a  very 
persuasive  speaker,  and  a  wonderful  manager;  but  the 
General  was  a  force  —  he  dominated  everything.  I've 
never  met  any  one  who  could  compare  with  him  for  strength 
of  character.  You  knew  the  difference  in  the  house  directly 
he  opened  the  door.  You  felt  his  presence  in  every  de- 
partment of  the  home  life.     He  was  a  real  master. 

"  You  could  never  say  No  to  the  General !  "  she  laughs. 
"  It  was  he  who  decided,  not  I,  that  I  was  to  live  with 
them.  When  he  said  a  thing  had  to  be  done,  it  was  done, 
and  quickly,  too.  We  used  to  call  him  '  The  General '  long 
before  there  was  any  Salvation  Army.  He  couldn't  bear 
beating  about  the  bush.  Prevarication,  like  stupidity,  ex- 
asperated him.  Everything  had  to  go  like  clockwork,  but 
very  much  faster  than  time,  I  always  say  that  he  got 
forty-eight  hours'  work  out  of  the  twenty-four." 

And  then,  laughing  quietly  to  herself,  she  says,  "Of 
course  he  was  queer.  He  often  used  to  say  to  me,  *  Sister 
Jane,  the  Booths  are  a  queer  lot,'  and  laugh  mischievously, 
for  he  was  often  laughing.  I've  known  him  suddenly  kneel 
down  in  the  middle  of  breakfast  and  give  thanks  to  God 
because  a  letter  he  had  opened  contained  money  for  the 
Mission.  He'd  be  tremendously  in  earnest  at  one  moment, 
and  the  next  he'd  be  laughing  at  himself,  saying  that  he 
was  a  queer  fellow.  He'd  change,  too,  in  a  twinkling  of 
an  eye  from  gloom  and  dejection  to  a  contagious  hilarity 
that  carried  everything  before  it.  He  suffered  in  those 
days  —  neuralgia  and  indigestion;  it  was  often  dreadful  to 
see  how  the  poor  man  suffered;  but  he  would  fling  it  all  off 
directly  there  was  work  to  do,  or  if  he  had  to  comfort  any- 
body else,  particularly  Mrs.  Booth.  His  love  for  his  wife 
was  the  most  beautiful  thing  I  have  ever  known.  It  really 
was  an  exquisite  thing.  You  know,  perhaps,  that  Mrs. 
Booth  was  a  great  invalid.  Her  sufferings,  at  times,  made 
her  irritable  and  exacting.  The  least  noise  on  some  oc- 
casions would  almost  distract  her.  Well,  it  was  at  such 
times  as  these  that  the  love  of  the  General  shone  out  most 
beautifully.  Never  once  did  he  say  a  harsh  word,  never 
once  did  he  try  rallying  her  with  rough  encouragement ;  no, 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE  317 

he  would  be  more  courteous  and  chivalrous  than  ever;  he 
would  make  love  to  her  as  tenderly  and  sweetly  as  if  she 
were  his  sweetheart;  and  he  would  wait  upon  her,  soothe 
her,  and  nurse  her  with  a  devotion  that  I  have  never  seen 
equalled.  I  don't  mean  that  he  himself  was  never  cross  and 
irritable.  He  was  sometimes,  in  my  opinion,  a  little  too 
stern  with  the  children.  But  his  love  for  his  wife,  well, 
that  was  quite  perfect;  and  when  I  look  back  now  I  can 
see  very  clearly  that  it  was  this  wonderful  and  beautiful 
love  for  Mrs.  Booth  which  made  the  greatest  impression 
on  my  mind.  I  may  forget  many  other  things  about 
them,  but  I  shall  never  forget  the  General's  love  for  his 
wife." 

The  house  in  which  they  now  lived.  No.  3  Gore  Road, 
Hackney,  was  one  of  those  detached,  double-fronted,  fam- 
ily residences  which  are  typical  of  the  London  suburbs  and 
therefore  characteristic  of  the  English  bourgeoisie.  With 
a  half -basement,  a  steep  flight  of  steps  to  the  front  door, 
large  plate-glass  windows,  and  a  complete  carelessness  as 
to  architectural  style,  this  big  house  had  every  impressive 
charm  which  appeals  to  the  middle-class  English  family. 
It  looked  a  rich  man's  dwelling;  it  was  separate  from  its 
neighbours;  it  possessed  large  living-rooms;  and  the  road 
in  which  it  lifted  up  its  solid  virtues  was  reputable  and 
uneventful  to  the  point  of  monotony.  It  was  what  people 
call  the  house  of  a  substantial  man. 

The  other  lodger  was  Miss  Billups,  daughter  of  the  rich 
contractor  at  Cardiff  who  had  already  befriended  the 
Booths'  Mission  out  of  a  lively  gratitude  for  spiritual  bless- 
ings. This  lady  was  a  trifle  exacting,  and  never  perhaps 
became  quite  a  member  of  the  family.  But  Miss  Short,  who 
was  soon  known  affectionately  as  Sister  Jane,  not  only, 
on  occasion,  shared  her  bedroom  with  one  of  the  children, 
and  became  a  very  intimate  and  beloved  member  of  the 
family,  but  worked  herself  very  nearly  to  death's  door  in 
the  service  of  the  Mission. 

Although  the  demands  of  the  Mission  were  enough  to 
disorganise  the  best-regulated  family  in  the  land,  there  was 
a  steady  sense  of  orderliness  in  this  household.  Meals,  for 
instance,  were  served  to  the  moment,  and  woe  betide  the 


3i8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

child  who  came  in  five  minutes  late.  The  General  never  sat 
at  the  head  of  his  table,  when  Mrs.  Booth  was  present,  but 
always  beside  her.  She  carved  at  dinner,  or  poured  out 
the  tea.  The  meals  were  of  an  extreme  simplicity,  and  a 
generous  rice  pudding  appeared  on  the  table  with  every 
dinner  —  haunting  the  minds  of  the  children  to  this  day. 
Mrs.  Booth  held  that  no  child  need  leave  the  table  hungry, 
however  meagre  the  joint,  so  long  as  this  rice  pudding 
completed  the  feast.  There  were  currants  in  it  on  special 
occasions. 

Another  characteristic  of  the  Booth  household  was  its 
tidiness.  The  General  hated  above  everything  else,  except 
sin,  untidiness,  and  dirt  in  every  shape  and  form.  His  own 
study  was  a  model  of  neatness.  But  he  insisted  that  the 
same  neatness  should  be  observed  elsewhere.  The  chairs 
were  drilled  like  soldiers.  Not  an  antimacassar  was  al- 
lowed to  be  out  of  place.  The  hearth  must  be  swept  con- 
tinually. Books  and  toys  were  never  permitted  to  be  "  left 
about." 

One  of  William  Booth's  good  qualities  was  a  meticulous 
attention  to  personal  cleanliness.  Long  before  the  bath 
was  general  in  English  life,  he  bathed  himself  every  morn- 
ing in  cold  water,  with  a  hot  bath  once  a  week,  and  made 
use  of  a  foot-bath  two  and  three  times  during  the  week. 
He  was  very  scrupulous  in  the  matter  of  body  linen,  and 
though  his  things  might  be  darned  in  every  direction,  they 
had  to  be  extremely  clean.  He  always  wore  long  woollen 
stockings  reaching  above  the  knee,  with  old-fashioned  gar- 
ters wound  round  and  round,  and  he  never  changed  these 
articles  without  carefully  turning  them  inside  out;  in  his 
extreme  old  age,  when  he  had  to  be  waited  upon,  he  would 
sometimes  blaze  into  momentary  ferocity  if  his  attendant 
was  slovenly  in  this  particular.  He  was  very  often  shabby, 
except  in  the  matter  of  boots,  but  never  slovenly.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  how  the  sympathies  of  such  a  man,  to  whom 
dirt  was  horrible  and  an  evil  smell  so  execrable  that  it  often 
produced  in  him  a  fit  of  nausea,  must  have  been  quickened 
by  the  frightful  barbarism  of  the  London  slums. 

It  seems  to  have  been  essential  with  him,  even  from  the 

The  opposition   from  the  lower  orders  was   increasing 


xxil  HOME  LIFE 


319 


very  beginnings  of  the  Mission  in  London,  that  he  should 
break  away  every  now  and  then  and  get  into  the  pure  air 
and  beautiful  surroundings  of  the  country. 

"  We  used  to  make  excursions  into  the  Forest,"  Miss 
Short  told  me,  "  and  those  were  certainly  among  the  Gen- 
eral's happiest  days.  He  was  like  a  schoolboy  directly  he 
got  away  from  London,  laughing,  singing,  and  joking 
nearly  all  the  time.  But,  mind  you,  he  never  went  away 
without  his  Bible  in  his  pocket,  and  I  think  he  hardly  ever 
passed  by  a  gipsy  without  speaking  to  him  about  his  soul. 
I've  heard  him  say  to  a  man,  for  instance,  cutting  short  a 
tale  of  some  kind,  '  But  what  you  said  was  untrue.  It  was 
a  lie.  You  ought  not  to  tell  lies.  Don't  you  know  it's 
wrong  to  tell  a  lie?  What  does  God  think  of  you  when 
you  say  what  isn't  true  ?  '  And  very  well  I  remember  that 
one  day  we  were  sitting  at  the  foot  of  a  great  tree  in  the 
Forest,  he  with  his  head  on  his  wife's  knee  reading  the 
thirty-sixth  chapter  of  Ezekiel,  when  he  suddenly  raised 
his  head  at  the  words.  Then  will  I  sprinkle  clean  zvatcr  upon 
yoii  and  ye  shall  he  clean:  from  all  your  filthiness,  and 
from  all  your  idols,  will  I  cleanse  you  —  and  fixed  his  eyes 
upon  me,  hard  and  shining",  and  demanded,  '  Do  you  believe 
that,  Jane  Short  ?  —  do  you  believe  it  —  cleansed  from  all 
your  filthiness  ?  '  I  remember  how  that  question  seemed 
to  flash  into  the  depths  of  my  soul." 

This  stor}'-  reminded  Miss  Short  of  the  General's  curtness 
in  religious  discussions  and  in  religious  meetings.  "  He 
was  always  practical,"  she  said,  "  and  he  detested  cant.  If 
anybody  prayed  too  long  in  a  meeting,  the  General  W'ould 
cut  him  short  with  a  loud  '  Amen.'  After  a  particular 
prayer-meeting,  which  I  very  well  remember  for  its  marvel- 
lous influence  on  many  souls,  the  General  sprang  up  and 
said :  '  We've  been  in  heaven ;  now  for  work.'  But  cant 
moved  him  to  fierce  anger,  even  the  very  semblance  of  it. 
A  missionary  came  to  him  once  in  those  early  days  and 
offered  his  services.  The  General  inquired  about  his  means 
of  existence,  and  the  man  replied  that  he  trusted  in  the  Lord. 
'  Do  you  trust  me,  though  ?  '  demanded  the  General ;  '  come 
now,  speak  out ;  what  do  you  want  ? '     He  was  a  wonder- 


320  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

ful,  very  nearly  an  infallible  judge  of  character;  but  he 
was  taken  in  more  than  once  —  always,  however,  by  men 
he  had  rather  questioned  from  the  first," 

It  may  be  imagined  that  a  woman  so  delicate  and  so 
constantly  engaged  as  Mrs.  Booth  had  little  time  for  the 
society  of  her  children.  She  cut  out  and  made  most  of 
their  clothes;  she  heard  their  prayers,  and  for  some  reason 
she  always  insisted  upon  washing  their  heads;  but  neither 
her  health  nor  her  engagements,  nor  perhaps  her  disposition, 
allowed  her  to  play  with  them.  Miss  Short  considers  them 
the  most  attractive  children  that  ever  breathed,  declaring 
that  the  two  chief  impressions  left  upon  her  mind  from 
those  years,  are  first  the  wonderful  love  of  William  Booth 
for  his  wife,  and,  second,  the  delightful  nature  of  the  chil- 
dren. 

"  Of  course  they  were  odd,  "  she  says,  smiling,  "  for,  as 
the  General  told  me,  all  the  Booths  are  queer;  but  they 
were  the  frankest,  purest,  sweetest-minded  children  I  ever 
knew.  And  the  General  knew  this  well,  and  although  he 
was  sterner  than  most  parents  are  now,  and  certainly  he 
did  often  whip  where  another  would  have  tried  gentler  meth- 
ods, still  he  loved  them  dearly,  particularly  Bramwell,  who 
probably  came  in  for  more  whippings  than  any  of  his 
brothers!  And  this  is  quite  certain,  the  children  adored 
their  parents.  They  thought  there  were  no  two  people  in 
the  w^orld  who  could  compare  with  their  father  and  mother. 
The  favourite  game  of  the  little  girls  in  the  nursery  was  a 
prayer-meeting,  and  they  used  to  have  a  penitent-bench 
where  the  dolls  were  made  to  kneel.  Often  I  have  hardly 
been  able  to  keep  from  laughing  at  the  sight  of  a  very 
ragged  doll,  all  the  hair  gone  and  a  great  hole  in  the  head, 
kneeling  at  the  penitent-bench.  Bramwell  was  the  first  to 
show  any  inclination  to  depart  from  the  lives  of  his  parents. 
He  wanted  to  be  a  surgeon;  he  would  spend  hours  dissect- 
ing the  body  of  a  mouse.  I  remember  that  he  once  bor- 
rowed a  doll  from  his  sister  Emma,  and  cut  it  open.  She 
burst  out  crying  when  she  saw  the  sawdust  streaming  away 
from  it,  and  Bramwell  exclaimed  indignantly,  '  Silly  child ! 
do  you  think  you  can  have  an  operation  without  blood  ?  ' 

"  But  religion  was  the  chief  characteristic  of  the  children's 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE 


321 


lives.  I  can  tell  you  a  story  which  shows  how  religion  en- 
tered into  their  thoughts.  Aly  father,  who  lived  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  Booths,  was  a  very  old-fashioned  man, 
who  smoked  a  churchwarden  pipe  and  drank  the  general 
drink  of  that  day,  gin  and  water.  One  afternoon  Ballington 
Booth  paid  him  a  visit,  and  when  my  father's  back  was 
turned  the  naughty  boy  drank  up  a  good  deal  of  the  gin 
and  water!  Directly  he  got  home,  he  burst  open  the  door 
of  the  room  where  his  father  was  working,  and  exclaimed 
in  quite  a  frenzy  of  alarm,  '  Papa,  papa,  I've  broken  my 
pledge!'  It  was  some  time  before  his  agitation  could  be 
dispersed.  I  remember  another  story,  too.  When  the  same 
child  had  been  naughty,  his  father  said  to  him :  '  Now 
would  you  rather  that  I  prayed  with  you  or  whipped  you  ?  ' 
Of  course  the  child  chose  prayer.  Then  the  General  said, 
'  We'll  see  what  prayer  will  do  for  you ;  we'll  try  that  first ; 
if  it  doesn't  make  you  a  good  boy  I  shall  whip  you.'  It 
might  not  have  been  a  wise  thing  to  say,  but  the  child  was 
sincere,  and  really  did  pray  to  be  a  good  boy." 

Mrs.  Booth  was  often  unable  at  this  time  to  bear  the 
noise  of  the  children,  and  they  never  played  downstairs 
when  she  had  retired.  But  William  Booth  made  it  a  rule, 
so  far  as  his  engagements  would  allow,  to  give  to  them  a 
part  of  his  evenings  at  home,  and  the  children  would  come 
charging  into  the  room  for  a  romp  with  their  father.  There 
was  no  set  game,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  although  "  Fox 
and  Geese  "  was  a  favourite,  but  a  scrimmage  of  some  kind 
was  the  usual  amusement.  William  Booth  would  lie  full 
length  upon  the  floor,  and  the  smaller  children  had  to  try  and 
pull  him  up.  He  loved  to  be  tousled;  like  other  men  of 
whom  we  have  heard,  he  delighted  in  having  his  hair  ruffled 
and  his  head  scratched ;  he  would  sit  reading  a  book  with 
complete  absorption,  while  one  of  his  children  sat  upon  the 
arm  of  his  chair  rubbing  his  head. 

"  One  evening,"  says  Miss  Jane  Short,  "  his  daughter 
Emma,  then  about  six,  amused  herself  by  putting  his  long 
hair  into  curl  papers.  She  worked  away  until  the  whole 
head  of  the  General  was  covered  with  little  twists  of  paper 
• —  such  a  sight  you  never  saw  in  your  life.  And  when  she 
had  finished  her  work,  the  door  opened  and  a  servant  en- 


322  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

tered  announcing  a  visitor.  Up  sprang  the  General,  and 
was  all  but  in  the  hall  when  the  children  flung  themselves 
upon  his  coat-tails  and  dragged  him  back,  screaming  with 
laughter.  You  can  fancy  that  when  the  General  looked  in 
the  glass  he  laughed  too. 

"  By  the  way,  I  always  think  it  is  a  good  test  of  a  man's 
character  to  know  what  his  servants  think  of  him;  and 
certainly  the  servants  in  Gore  Road  loved,  I  w^s  going  to 
say  idolised,  the  Booths.  The  General  might  be  harsh  and 
abrupt  at  times,  but  they  could  not  do  enough  for  him,  and 
they  were  never  in  the  least  afraid  of  him.  I  remember 
that  sometimes,  after  a  very  exhausting  Sunday,  the  Booths 
would  take  their  breakfast  in  bed,  and  the  maid  used  to 
laugh  quite  frankly  at  the  General's  appearance  on  these 
occasions.  They  felt  for  him  every  possible  respect,  but 
there  was  no  fear  and  no  severity  in  their  attitude;  they 
considered  themselves  members  of  the  family,  associated 
themselves  with  its  fortunes,  and  entered  as  heartily  into 
the  religious  enthusiasm  of  the  household  as  into  the  fun 
and  cheerfulness." 

Although  William  Booth  had  an  almost  unreasonable, 
or  at  any  rate  a  Hebraist's  contempt  for  games  —  hating 
cricket  and  football  as  if  they  were  sins  —  he  entered  with 
a  boy's  sympathy  into  the  enthusiasm  of  his  sons  for  ani- 
mals. The  garden  at  Gore  Road  was  given  up  to  rabbits, 
guinea-pigs,  rats,  mice,  and  fowls.  The  boys  owned  these 
creatures  and  ruled  over  them,  but  the  father  drew  almost  as 
much  pleasure  from  them  as  did  the  sons.  He  would  go 
round  the  cages  and  watch  the  feeding.  If  a  man  of  one 
idea,  and  that  idea  a  burning  consciousness  of  the  existence 
of  a  God,  can  be  said  to  have  a  hobby,  the  hobby  of  William 
Booth  was  this  boyish  delight  in  the  pets  of  a  back-garden. 
His  sons  consulted  him  in  every  new  venture,  and  he  seems 
to  have  shared  their  excitement  at  every  fresh  addition  to 
the  menagerie.  Bramvvell  Booth  remembers  that  his  father 
took  a  particular  interest  in  his  silkworms. 

"  I  don't  think  any  father  could  ever  have  been  prouder 
of  his  children  than  the  General,"  says  Miss  Short.  "  I  am 
quite  certain  that  it  hurt  him  not  to  dress  them  up  in  beauti- 
ful clothes.     But  he  insisted  on  simple,  plain,  strong  clothes, 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE  323 

not  only  for  the  sake  of  economy,  but  for  the  sake  of  setting 
an  example.  It  used  to  make  him  furious  when  he  saw  the 
way  in  which  poor  people  wasted  precious  money  on  stupid 
finery.  He  wouldn't  even  allow  the  family  to  go  into 
mourning  when  Mrs.  Mumford  died,  saying  that  the  London 
poor  ruined  themselves  by  wearing  black  for  a  funeral. 
But  he  longed,  I  know,  to  see  his  children  finely  dressed, 
all  the  same.  I've  heard  him  say  to  them,  '  When  I  get 
you  all  to  heaven,  I'll  deck  you ;  it  will  be  safe  there.'  And 
once  or  twice  he  succumbed  to  temptation.  I  said  to  Mrs. 
Booth  once,  *  Wouldn't  Herbert  look  lovely  in  a  black  vel- 
veteen suit  with  red  stockings  ?  ' —  and  then  I  told  the 
General  that  it  was  shameful  to  dress  such  a  beautiful  child 
in  plain,  ugly  things,  asking  him  whether  the  poor  would 
be  any  worse  off  for  seeing  the  little  child  in  velveteen. 
Well,  I  got  my  way  for  once;  but  the  child  only  wore  the 
suit  two  or  three  times.  I  think  they  carried  th-'s  idea  too 
far." 

Another  disastrous  experiment  in  fine  raiment  carried 
with  it  a  religious  commentary.  Mrs.  Booth  bought  some 
beautiful  silk  for  the  girls'  dresses,  and  gave  it  to  one  of 
the  women  converted  in  the  Mission  for  making-up,  the 
material  being  too  splendid  for  home  manufacture.  Un- 
fortunately the  temptation  of  this  silk  was  too  much  for 
the  Whitechapel  woman,  who  disappeared  with  the  material 
and  was  never  heard  of  again.  Mrs.  Booth  regarded  this 
disaster  as  a  lesson. 

On  one  occasion  some  very  fine  toys  were  sent  by  rich 
people  for  a  bazaar  which  Mrs.  Booth  was  organizing  in 
East  London.  Miss  Short  suggested  that  the  children  of 
poor  people  would  not  know  what  to  make  of  such  things, 
and  counselled  Mrs.  Booth  to  buy  them  in  for  her  own 
children.  "  But  she  wouldn't  listen  to  me,"  says  Miss 
Short,  "  though  I  could  see  that  she  would  have  been 
pleased  to  possess  the  toys  for  her  own  children.  She  said 
they  were  intended  for  the  poor,  and  the  poor  must  have 
them;  and  she  said  that  she  had  no  right  to  spend  money 
on  such  things.  I  never  knew  people  in  my  whole  life  who 
had  such  a  perfect  horror  of  debt.  There  were  times  when 
they  were  exceedingly  poor,  driven,  one  might  say,  for  a 


324  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

sixpence ;  but  never  once  did  they  incur  a  single  debt.  Mrs. 
Booth  told  me  that  she  would  far  rather  starve  than  owe 
a  penny,  and  the  General  held  the  same  views.  They  were 
terribly  strict  where  money  was  concerned." 

With  such  views  on  clothes  it  may  be  guessed  that  the 
Booths  entertained  very  strict  notions  as  to  the  wearing 
of  jewellery.  What  was  their  horror,  then,  when  Balling- 
ton  walked  into  the  room  one  day  at  tea-time  with  a  ring 
on  his  finger  —  purchased  with  a  shilling  which  had  re- 
cently been  given  to  him.  Some  of  the  astonished  children, 
we  regret  to  chronicle,  set  up  a  shout,  "  Ballington's  a 
back-slider !  "  and  for  a  moment  a  scene  of  confusion  reigned 
at  the  tea-table.  Then  the  voice  of  the  General  was  heard, 
loud,  deadly,  and  authoritative :  "  Silence !  His  mother 
will  deal  with  him  later."  The  meal  proceeded  awkwardly, 
and  when  it  was  over  Ballington  was  closeted  for  some  ten 
minutes  with  his  mother.  "  He  came  out  from  that  inter- 
view," says  Miss  Short,  "  with  very  red  eyes  and  without 
the  ring." 

When  the  last  baby,  Lucy,  was  born  in  1867,  the  General 
informed  the  other  children  of  this  event  in  the  following 
manner :  "  Now,  listen ;  I  have  got  a  wonderful  piece  of 
news  for  you.     God  has  sent  us  a  most  beautiful  present." 

At  once  there  was  a  shout,  "  Is  it  alive?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  General,  "  it's  alive." 

"Is  it  a  dog?" 

"  No." 

"A  donkey?" 

"  No." 

After  a  few  more  guesses  at  live-stock,  the  General  said, 
with  great  impressiveness,  "  It's  a  baby!  " 

There  was  a  shout  of  joy,  an  instant  demand  to  see  the 
newcomer,  and  then  the  children  crept  upstairs  after  their 
father,  on  tiptoe,  and  were  shown  the  baby.  Then  Balling- 
ton  said,  "  That's  what  I've  been  praying  for  —  a  baby  " ; 
but  Miss  Short  is  disposed  to  think  that  for  some  weeks 
Ballington  had  been  praying  industriously  for  a  donkey. 

"  I  must  tell  you,"  says  Miss  Short,  "  about  the  death 
of  Mrs,  Mum  ford.  In  those  days  the  Booths  had  not  given 
up    the   Communion    service,   and    towards    the   last,    poor 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE 


325 


Mrs.  Mum  ford,  who  had  suffered  untold  agonies  from 
cancer,  asked  that  the  General  should  give  her  the  Sacra- 
ment. I  was  present  then,  as  I  was  also  present  at  her 
death,  and  I  cannot  tell  you  how  deeply  I  was  affected 
by  the  beautiful  tenderness  of  the  General  on  that  occasion. 
He  made  one  feel  that  the  whole  service  was  deeply  per- 
sonal to  the  poor  dying  woman;  he  put  his  arm  about  her, 
bent  his  face  close  to  hers,  and  said  —  I  shall  never  forget 
it  — '  Take  and  eat  this.  Mother,  in  remembrance  that  Christ 
died  for  thee/  and,  *  Drink  this,  Mother,  in  remembrance 
that  Christ's  Blood  was  shed  for  thee/  and  his  voice,  though 
it  trembled  with  tenderness,  was  strong  with  faith.  I  re- 
member, too,  how  we  were  all  sent  for  late  one  night,  and 
how  Bramwell  and  Ballington  were  brought  to  her  bed- 
side. This  was  the  first  experience  either  the  General  or 
his  wife  had  had  of  death  in  their  own  immediate  circle. 
They  w-ere  both  deeply  affected.  Mrs.  Mumford  desired 
to  testify,  and  she  testified  in  a  weak  and  faltering  voice 
to  her  unshaken  faith  in  Christ.  Afterwards,  sinking  back 
on  her  pillow  and  closing  her  eyes,  she  said,  '  Sing.'  The 
General  sang  a  hymn  and  told  the  boys  to  sing  with  him, 
saying,  '  Softly,  softly.'  While  we  sang  that  hymn  very 
quietly,  Mrs.  Mumford  relapsed  into  unconsciousness,  and 
remained  unconscious  until  i  o'clock  the  next  day.  Her 
death  was  remarkable.  Mrs.  Booth  was  kneeling  at  her 
side,  holding  her  hand,  and  quite  suddenly  Mrs.  Mumford 
regained  consciousness,  opened  her  eyes  wide,  and  with  a 
light  on  her  face  that  was  unearthly,  exclaimed,  '  Kate !  — 
Jesus!  '  and  was  gone  in  that  moment." 

The  children,  as  one  can  well  imagine,  were  greatly  agi- 
tated by  this  death;  Bramwell,  in  particular,  was  thrown 
into  a  highly  nervous  condition  of  grief,  "  I  remember," 
says  Miss  Short,  "  how  he  would  listen  to  no  comfort  from 
any  of  us,  and  how  his  father  had  to  be  fetched,  and  how 
the  General  bounded  up  the  two  flights  of  stairs  to  the 
boy's  bedroom,  taking  him  in  his  arms,  and  comforting  him 
with  a  maternal  tenderness  while  he  explained  the  Christian 
hope  of  union." 

Mrs.  Booth,  for  some  unexplained  reason,  insisted  that 
her  husband  should  be  present  at  the  post-mortem  examina- 


326  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

tion  which  followed  Mrs.  Mumford's  death.  This  ex- 
amination was  made  in  the  interest  of  medical  science,  for 
the  cancer  from  which  Mrs.  Mumford  had  suffered  so  long 
was  of  an  unusual  and  perplexing  character.  Why  Mrs. 
Booth  made  this  stipulation,  unless  it  was  to  ensure  rever- 
ence for  her  mother's  remains,  cannot  be  understood  by 
Miss  Short;  for,  not  only  was  their  doctor  a  very  sincere 
Christian,  a  man  in  whom  they  all  reposed  an  unbounded 
confidence,  but  she  knew  very  well  that  William  Booth 
shrank  from  any  distressing  sight,  and  found  it  almost  im- 
possible to  support  the  sight  of  pain, 

"  You  could  not  meet  a  man,"  says  Miss  Short,  "  whose 
nerves  were  more  tortured  by  the  spectacle  of  suffering. 
Pain,  the  sight  of  pain  in  others,  made  him  wretched.  He 
would  turn  away  from  it,  quite  sick  and  dizzy.  I  am  sure 
it  was  this  horror  of  suffering  that  helped  to  make  him  so 
terribly  in  earnest  as  a  preacher,  for  he  saw  clearly  that 
sin  is  a  chief  cause  of  nearly  every  form  of  pain  and  suffer- 
ing. People  will  never  know  what  he  endured  in  the  slums 
of  great  cities." 

Immediately  after  the  death  of  Mrs.  Mumford,  William 
Booth  was  taken  ill,  and  it  was  discovered  that  he  had 
contracted  enteric  fever.  In  his  delicate  state  of  health, 
such  an  illness  was  of  the  gravest  menace,  and  for  some 
time  his  life  hung  upon  a  thread.  "  Well,  Sister  Jane," 
he  exclaimed  to  Miss  Short,  who  came  to  visit  him,  "  you 
see  the  lion  chained  at  last."  His  courage,  and  his  cheer- 
fulness, carried  him  through  this  dangerous  illness. 

"  He  loved  Mrs.  Mumford  hke  a  son,"  says  Miss  Short, 
"  and  he  loved  his  own  mother  —  such  a  grand-looking  old 
woman,  stately  and  solemn,  very  Jewish  in  feature  —  with 
a  boy's  love  to  the  last.  One  Sunday,  when  he  was  staying 
with  them  in  London,  he  preached  a  sermon,  to  a  crowded 
church,  on  Peace.  Old  Mrs.  Booth  was  immensely  proud 
of  him,  and  when  he  returned  she  said  to  him,  '  William, 
you  preached  a  beautiful  sermon.'  He  looked  at  her,  a 
smile  of  roguishness  in  his  eyes,  and  said,  '  You've  heard 
your  son  preach;  how  would  you  like  to  hear  him  pray, 
just  as  he  used  to  pray,  when  he  was  a  boy? '  And  there 
and  then  he  dropped  on  his  knees  before  her,  buried  his 


WILLIAM  BOOTH'S  MOTHER 

(:\Iary  Moss  Booth) 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE 


327 


face  in  her  lap,  and  prayed  with  an  intensity  and  a  force 
that  carried  us  all  away.  In  another  moment  he  was  on 
his  feet,  bright  again,  saying  to  me,  '  Haven't  I  often  told 
you,  Sister  Jane,  that  the  Booths  are  a  queer  lot?'  Once 
I  said  to  him,  '  You  ought  to  have  been  an  actor,'  and  he 
looked  at  me,  nodded  his  head,  and  laughingly  replied,  '  I 
should  have  made  my  living!'  He  knew  perfectly  well 
that  he  could  throw  himself  into  almost  anything,  and, 
although  he  thought  his  wife  was  the  better  preacher  for 
certain  audiences,  he  knew  that  he  could  hold  vast  numbers 
of  all  -sorts  and  conditions  spellbound.  I  am  quite  sure 
that  he  would  have  been  a  great  actor;  but  oh,  wouldn't 
he  have  been  unhappy  without  religion!  " 

Miss  Short  cannot  remember  a  single  occasion  on  which 
theological  difficulties,  difficulties  of  faith,  were  discussed 
at  the  Booth  table.  Although  religion  entered  into  every 
detail  of  their  lives,  they  never  spoke  —  at  any  rate  before 
Miss  Short  —  of  intellectual  problems,  all  their  difficulties 
lying  in  the  sphere  of  conduct.  To  live  more  perfectly  in 
accord  with  the  Christ  spirit,  to  make  other  Christians 
more  earnest,  to  save  sinners  from  temporal  wretchedness 
and  everlasting  damnation  —  these  were  the  chief  subjects 
of  their  table-talk.  "  I  think  it  was  the  suffering  and 
misery  all  about  them,"  says  Miss  Short,  "  which  made 
the  General  and  his  wife  stick  to  the  simple  elementary 
truths  of  religion.  I  know  this,  that  they  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  treat  the  London  poor  exactly  like  heathen. 
It  would  have  been  absurd  to  preach  to  these  poor  people 
about  theology;  and  the  General,  whose  heart  was  torn 
by  suffering,  centred  himself  on  saving  their  souls.  I  have 
heard  him  preach  very  beautiful  sermons  on  love,  and  I 
remember  in  particular  a  sermon  on  the  text.  Acquaint  now 
thyself  zcitli  I  Jim,  and  be  at  peace,  which  w'as  as  gentle  as  it 
was  moving ;  but  he  used  to  say,  whenever  we  praised  ser- 
mons of  this  kind,  '  No ;  the  best  preaching  is  Damnation, 
withJJtie  Cross.in.the  middle  of  jt.'  Experience  had  taught 
him  that.  The  heathen  poor  had  to  be  roused  to  a  sense  ' 
of  their  danger  before  they  could  shake  off  their  spiritual 
torpor,  and  even  desire  immortal  happiness.  I  don't  think  i 
his  thoughts  ever  wandered  very  far  from  that  centre  of 


328  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

religion.  He  believed  that  the  Bible  was  the  inspired  Word 
of  God;  and  in  the  Bible  he  found  that  the  injunction  to 
repent  preceded  the  invitation  to  holiness.  No  one  in  his 
house  questioned  for  a  single  moment,  or  in  any  respect, 
the  truth  of  the  Bible." 

As  an  example  of  the  harrowing  effect  produced  upon 
William  Booth's  mind  by  the  destitution  and  depravity  of 
London,  Miss  Short  relates  the  story  of  the  first  Christmas 
Day  she  spent  in  his  home.  "  The  General,"  she  says,  "  had 
determined  that  the  children  should  have  a  thoroughly 
happy  old-fashioned  Christmas,  and  for  a  week  beforehand 
every  preparation  was  made  for  a  great  family  festival. 
The  children  were  full  of  excitement,  their  father  entered 
into  the  spirit  of  the  thing,  and  I  really  thought  it  would 
be  a  day  of  the  purest  happiness.  But  when  the  General 
returned  from  his  preaching  in  W^hitechapel  on  Christmas 
morning,  he  was  pale,  haggard,  and  morose.  He  did  his 
best  to  enter  into  the  children's  fun  and  frolic,  but  it  was 
no  use;  he  kept  relapsing  into  silence  and  gloom.  He 
looked  dreadfully  white  and  drawn,  just  as  if  he  were  ill 
or  harassed  by  some  grievous  worry.  And  then  suddenly 
he  burst  out,  *  I'll  never  have  a  Christmas  Day  like  this 
again ! '  and,  getting  on  his  feet  and  walking  up  and  down 
the  room  like  a  caged  lion,  he  told  us  of  the  sights  he  had 
seen  that  morning  in  Whitechapel,  indignantly  saying,  '  The 
poor  have  nothing  but  the  public-house  —  nothing  but  the 
public-house ! '  I  remembered  how  he  had  once  stopped  me 
at  every  public-house  in  the  Mile  End  Road,  pointing  to 
the  young  men  and  the  young  women  who  crowded  the 
different  bars,  exclaiming,  *  Look  at  that !  —  look  at  it !  — 
enough  to  make  the  angels  weep!'  Sights  of  this  kind, 
which  other  people  would  see  and  regret,  seemed  to  stab 
him  to  the  heart;  other  people  only  saw  the  drinking,  he 
saw  the  poverty,  the  misery,  the  disease,  and  the  godless- 
ness^behind  it;  the  sins  of  London  didn't  shock  him,  they 
seemed  to  tear  at  his  heart  with  claws  that  drew  blood. 
Well,  he  was  true  to  his  word.  That  Christmas  Day  was 
the  last  Christmas  Day  the  Booth  family  ever  spent  to- 
gether. On  the  following  Christmas  Day  we  were  scattered 
in    the    slums    distributing    plum-puddings.     I    remember 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE  329 

that  we  thought  the  Mission  a  very  great  affair  because 
we  gave  away  150  puddings!  How  Httle  any  of  us  fore- 
saw the  future.  Last  year  the  Army  distributed  30,000 
puddings  in  London  alone!  All  the  same,  our  little  gift  of 
150,  many  of  them  made  in  the  kitchen  at  Gore  Road,  was 
the  beginning  of  the  Salvation  Army's  Christmas  Day. 
The  General  said  to  me  one  day,  after  a  prayer-meeting,  at 
which  some  of  the  recipients  had  been  blessed,  '  Sister  Jane, 
the  Lord  accepted  our  puddings.'  " 

Distressed  as  he  was  by  the  penury  and  degradation  of 
East  London,  Williami  Booth  was  never  morose  when  work- 
ing to  change  the  souls  of  men.  Miss  Short  says  he  would 
carry  a  meeting  before  him  by  his  humour  and  his  hope- 
fulness; and  the  more  miserable  and  broken-hearted  his 
audience,  the  more  cheerfulness  he  put  into  his  methods. 
She  remembers  that  he  was  preaching  once  in  a  hall  for 
the  first  time  under  a  sounding-board  —  a  very  heavy  and 
clumsy  contrivance  which  hung  just  over  his  head.  At  the 
end  of  his  address  he  invited  men  to  come  and  testify  on  the 
platform,  adding,  "  But  only  those  who  are  really  saved 
had  better  come,  for" — pointing  to  the  sounding-board, 
"  it  may  mean  death."  It  was  such  remarks  as  this, 
startling  in  those  days,  which  endeared  him  to  his  rough 
audiences,  who  were  sharply  suspicious  of  sanctimonious- 
ness. 

He  was,  nevertheless,  still  a  trifle  clerical,  for  on  one  oc- 
casion when  a  converted  navvy  desired  to  preach,  he  in- 
sisted that  the  man  should  wear  a  black  suit  of  clothes, 
and  actually  gave  the  convert  his  only  other  suit,  frock 
coat  and  all,  in  which  the  new  preacher  cut  a  sufficiently 
comical  figure.  It  will  be  explained  later  on  that  only 
after  many  rebuffs  from  the  churches  did  he  strike  out  on 
those  original  lines  which  culminated  in  the  Salvation 
Army. 

His  great  secret  of  success.  Miss  Short  is  quite  certain, 
was  the  discovery  of  the  enormous  influence  of  love  and 
kindness  in  dealing  with  fallen  humanity.  Very  early  in 
those  first  years  in  London,  he  showed  boundless  compas- 
sion to  a  man  sunk  in  misery  and  sin,  hunting  his  soul  with 
the  "  deliberate  speed,  majestic  instancy  "  of  the  Hound  of 


330  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Heaven.  And  when  the  man  yielded  at  last,  it  was  with 
the  astonished  exclamation,  "  Love  and  kindness !  Then 
there  really  is  a  God." 

"  There  were  many  disappointments,"  says  Miss  Short, 
"  some  of  them  enough  to  embitter  any  man ;  but  he  never 
lost  heart,  although  these  disappointments  caused  him  dread- 
ful pain  at  the  time.  One  of  his  evangelists  went  wrong, 
and  for  days  he  found  it  impossible  to  shake  ofif  the  sor- 
row caused  by  this  fall.  Then  there  was  a  young  man  who 
worked  for  him,  and  whom  he  loved,  a  young  man  with 
what  you  might  call  a  story-book  face  —  so  handsome, 
heroic,  and  pure.  One  day  they  came  and  told  the  Gen- 
eral that  this  young  man  was  in  the  London  Hospital  with 
a  serious  injury  to  his  spine;  although  he  shrank  from  see- 
ing this  friend  in  pain,  he  posted  off  at  once,  and  when 
he  arrived  it  was  to  hear  a  confession  of  embezzlement. 
He  knelt  down  at  the  bedside,  before  the  whole  ward,  and 
prayed  for  the  soul  of  that  young  man,  his  own  heart 
utterly  miserable.  But  in  this  case  he  was  made  happy  by 
the  restoration  of  the  injured  youth,  who  took  his  advice, 
made  a  full  confession  of  his  crime,  and  repaid  every  penny 
of  the  money.  That,  as  you  probably  know,  was  one  of 
the  General's  strictest  rules.  Repentance  meant  confession 
and  restoration.  This  teaching  sent  many  a  man  to  prison 
whose  crime  would  never  have  been  discovered,  and  many 
more  he  sent  to  the  employers,  often  going  with  them,  to 
confess  the  sins  of  which  they  had  been  guilty." 

Of  his  stern  honesty  with  himself  Miss  Short  does  not 
entertain  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  "  You  can  see  how 
honest  he  was  by  his  relations  with  Mr.  Henry  Reed,  the 
very  rich  Australian  living  in  Tunbridge  Wells  who  came 
under  the  spell  of  Mr.  Booth's  preaching.  I  can  distinctly 
remember  the  joy  and  the  hope  with  which  the  General 
set  out  on  one  of  his  journeys  to  Dunorlan,  Mr.  Reed's 
beautiful  place  in  Tunbridge  Wells,  believing  that  he  would 
come  back  with  hundreds  of  pounds  towards  the  three 
thousand  he  was  striving  to  raise  for  a  Mission  Hall.  But 
he  came  back,  instead,  utterly  depressed ;  indeed,  I  think 
that  was  the  only  occasion  on  which  I  ever  saw  him  really 
dejected.     And  why  was   this?     It  was   just  because  the 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE 


331 


religious  people  surrounding  Mr.  Reed,  and  who  crowded 
the  park  to  hear  the  Whitechapel  missionary  preach,  were 
such  '  poor  stuff.'  I  remember  how  the  General  walked 
up  and  down  the  room  muttering,  '  I  want  men !  I  want 
men! '  He  doubted  all  religion  that  made  people  soft  and 
selfish.  He  was  very  suspicious  of  any  religion  which  did 
noLfructify  into  work  for  others.  The  people  he  met  that 
day  thought  too  much  of  dogma  and  too  little  of  Christian 
service  —  they  didn't  hunger  and  thirst  after  the  saving 
of  lost  souls.  Mr.  Reed  offered  the  General  a  lot  of  money, 
and  if  I  remember  rightly  a  suitable  site  in  East  London, 
and  a  fine  hall  that  was  to  cost  something  like  seven  thou- 
sand pounds.  But  after  making  this  splendid  offer,  which 
took  the  General's  breath  away,  Mr.  Reed  explained  that 
the  Mission  in  future  must  be  conducted  in  a  manner 
of  which  he  approved,  making  it  quite  clear  that  he  expected 
to  exercise  authority  over  the  General.^  A  weaker  man 
than  the  General  might  have  been  tempted  to  accept  this 
splendid  gift  on  any  terms,  but  the  General  was  far  too 
honest  a  man  to  prevaricate  for  a  moment.  He  rejected 
the  offer.  He  refused  to  put  himself  under  the  dominion 
of  a  sect.  But  I  really  think  he  was  more  dejected  by 
the  spirit  of  the  Christianity  he  encountered  in  Tunbridge 
Wells  than  by  the  loss  of  this  tremendously  large  sum 
of  money.  He  kept  on  saying,  '  I  want  men !  I  want 
men !  " 

We  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter  the  character  of  the 
difficulties  which  confronted  William  Booth  in  East  London, 
and  which  made  him  even  think  of  abandoning  the  Mission. 
For  the  present  we  will  conclude  this  account  of  the  Booths' 
domestic  life  with  some  remarks  on  the  subject  of  the 
father's  relations  with  his  children. 

It  would  be  possible,  perhaps,  for  an  unscrupulous  writer 
in  years  to  come,  when  witnesses  for  the  defence  are  dead, 
to  accuse  William  Booth  of  something  like  harshness 
towards  his  children ;  to  suggest,  at  any  rate,  that  he  was 

1  Another  of  the  conditions  of  Mr.  Reed,  not  mentioned  by  Miss  Jane 
Short,  was  that  William  Booth  should  settle  permanently  in  East 
London  and  not  roam  about,  and  in  that  event  he  would  settle  a  gen- 
erous sum  upon  him  and  Mrs.  Booth.  Pie  was  a  liberal  and  earnest 
man,  but  he  liked  apparently  to  exercise  his  authority. 


332  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

a  man  who  preached  one  life  in  the  pulpit  and  did  not 
quite  practise  it  in  his  home.  We  do  not  pretend  for  a 
moment  that  he  was  faultless :  we  readily  deplore  in  him 
the  absence  of  some  of  those  refinements  of  nature  which 
are  the  marks  of  genuine  sainthood;  he  was  not  perhaps 
as  gentle  as  we  could  wish  a  hero  of  religion  to  be;  he 
lacked  something  of  that  fathomless  humility,  that  un- 
bounded reverence  for  childhood,  and  that  inexhaustible 
tolerance  for  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature  which  endear 
the  holiest  of  men  to  the  affections  of  mortality. 

But  enough  has  been  said  in  this  place  to  prevent  his 
exhibition,  even  with  these  faults,  as  anything  but  a  true 
and  affectionate  father.  He  was  not  one  thing  in  the 
pulpit  and  another  in  his  home;  he  was  never  in  such  a  re- 
lation to  his  children  as  made  them  distrust  or  fear  him. 
Those  occasional  explosions  which  characterised  him  all 
through  life,  and  which  malignity  might  exaggerate,  were 
never  taken  very  seriously  either  by  his  children  or  by 
his  followers.  They  sprang  from  physical  disabilities,  from 
dyspepsia,  and  from  the  attacks  of  neuralgia  which  re- 
peatedly racked  his  nerves ;  and  they  were  short-lived.  He 
was  a  man  who  never  sulked.  Suddenly  he  would  blaze 
into  anger,  with  all  the  appearance  of  fiery  indignation,  and 
at  the  next  moment  he  would  be  laughing  at  himself,  or 
rallying  with  generous  humour  the  victim  of  his  reproof. 

Bramwell  Booth,  whose  reverence  for  his  father  is  well 
known,  and  on  whom  that  father  leaned  almost  alone  in  the 
years  of  his  widowerhood,  is  honest  and  fearless  enough  to 
say  that  he  considers  his  father  did  thrash  him  on  several 
occasions  without  justice.  At  the  same  time  he  scoffs  out 
of  hearing  the  least  suggestion  that  his  father  was  despotic 
or  unkind.  "  We  adored  him !  "  he  exclaims ;  "  every  one 
of  us;  and,  even  when  we  sulked,  we  were  always  longing 
for  his  forgiveness." 

Miss  Short's  testimony  is  to  the  like  effect.  "  When  the 
elder  children  were  in  trouble  it  was  usually  to  their  father, 
not  to  their  mother,  that  they  would  go.  I  remember  one 
day  that  Emma  had  a  bad  fit,  after  squashing  a  finger  very 
badly  in  one  of  the  doors ;  she  lay  sobbing  on  the  floor, 
refusing  to  be  comforted,  till  her  father  rushed  upstairs, 


XXI]  HOME  LIFE  333 

threw  himself  on  the  floor  beside  her,  gathered  her  into 
his  arms,  and  mothered  her  with  all  the  tenderness  of  a 
woman.  He  was  impatient  with  them  at  times,  particularly 
when  he  was  bowed  down  by  worries,  but  he  loved  them 
most  dearly.  One  day  he  was  dictating  a  number  of  letters 
to  me  in  his  room,  when  one  of  the  girls  entered,  went 
to  the  piano,  and  sat  down  to  practise  her  scales.  Mrs. 
Booth  was  lying  down  in  the  next  room,  ill  and  nervous. 
He  jumped  up,  seized  the  child  in  his  hands,  rated  her 
soundly  for  not  thinking  of  her  mother,  and  then  pushed 
her  sharply  out  of  the  room.  On  that  occasion  he  was 
distinctly  angry,  and  it  pained  me  to  see  the  child  treated 
so  roughly.  But  a  minute  or  two  afterwards  Mrs.  Booth 
entered  the  room.  *  William,'  she  said  reproachfully,  '  it 
was  kind   of   you  to   think  of  me,   but   I   am   sorry   you 

should '     In  an  instant  he  was  on  his   feet,  with  his 

arms  round  her,  and  I  slipped  from  the  room.  He  could 
repent  with  all  the  abandonment  of  a  child." 

No  one,  says  Miss  Short,  can  possibly  understand  Wil- 
liam Booth  who  does  not  realize  that  he  was  of  a  most 
energetic  and  enthusiastic  nature.  "  I  have  never  met  any 
one,"  she  declares,  "  who  could  compare  with  him  in  any 
way  in  this  respect.  And  as  he  was  an  extraordinarily  pure 
man,  loathing  and  abominating  anything  that  was  the  least 
coarse  —  his  purity  of  mind,  heart,  and  soul  struck  me 
greatly  —  you  can  see  that  the  force  of  his  nature  would 
drive  him  furiously  through  the  day's  work.  He  was 
alwjj:s  facing  in  the  one  direction.  The  day  could  never 
be  too  long  for  what  he  had  to  do.  And  nobody,  I'm 
afraid,  could  ever  be  quick  enough  and  intelligent  enough 
to  keep  up  with  him.  I  know  that  he  broke  me  down! 
Mrs.  Booth  herself  warned  me  on  several  occasions  that  if 
I  let  him  he  would  kill  me ;  and  indeed  I  had  to  go  away 
at  last,  and  take  a  long  sea  voyage,  to  recover  even  a  frac- 
tion of  my  former  health." 

One  of  the  early  memories  shared  by  Miss  Short  and  Mr. 
Bramwell  Booth  concerns  William  Booth's  love  of  sing- 
ing. They  both  told  me  that  he  seldom  ran  upstairs,  and 
apparently  he  never  walked  upstairs  when  he  could  help  it, 
without  singing,  and  that  while  he  was  dressing  in  the  morn- 


334     THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH      [chap.xxi] 

ing  they  would  often  hear  him  singing  at  the  top  of  his 
voice.  Mrs.  Booth  understood  nothing  of  mu^ic,  but  Wil- 
ham  Booth  was  never  so  happy  as  when  he  was  singing, 
and  it  was  one  of  his  greatest  joys  in  Hfe  that  all  his  chil- 
dren were  musical,  some  of  them  being  among  the  first  com- 
posers of  Salvation  Army  music. 


i 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE    FIRST    LONDON    MISSION 

I 865- I 868 

William  Booth,  describing  his  mission  in  The  Christian, 
in  1865,  wrote: 

The  moral  degradation  and  spiritual  destitution  of  the  teem- 
ing population  of  the  East  of  London  are  subjects  with  which 
the  Christians  of  the  metropolis  are  perfectly  conversant. 
More  than  two-thirds  of  the  working-classes  never  cross  the 
threshold  of  church  or  chapel,  but  loiter  away  the  Sabbath  in 
idleness,  spending  it  in  pleasure-seeking  or  some  kind  of 
money-making  traffic.  Consequently,  tens  of  thousands  are 
totally  ignorant  of  the  Gospel ;  and,  as  they  will  not  attend  the 
means  ordinarily  used  for  making  known  the  love  of  God 
towards  them,  it  is  evident  that  if  they  are  to  be  reached  ex- 
traordinary methods  must  be  employed. 

This  announcement  was  made  six  weeks  after  the  begin- 
ning of  an  irregular  mission  in  Whitechapel,  to  the  hold- 
ing of  which  he  had  been  invited  by  a  firm  of  publishers, 
Messrs.  Stabb  &  Chase.  Services  of  a  revival  character 
were  held  first  in  an  old  tent  erected  on  the  Quakers'  bury- 
ing-ground  in  Thomas  Street,  and  afterwards  in  the  open 
air  in  the  Mile  End  Road.  From  the  outset  these  serv- 
ices were  well  attended,  and  scarcely  a  meeting  passed  with- 
out several  conversions  —  conversions  which  must  have 
acquainted  William  Booth  with  the  strange  character  of  the 
East  London  v^diirlpool,  since  they  were  representative  of 
nearly  every  class  in  the  community. 

It  will  be  observed  that  he  speaks  in  this  announcement 
of  the  moral  degradation  and  the  spiritual  destitution  of 
East  London.  There  is  not  one  word,  not  a  hint  anywhere, 
of  the  economic  degradation  and  the  physical  destitution 
which  are  only  too  often  the  direct  causes  of  spiritual  torpor. 
At  the  beginning  of  his  career  in  London,  it  is  quite  clear, 

335 


336  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

William  Booth  had  one  remedy,  and  only  one  remedy,  for 
the  distresses  of  mankind,  and  that  the  Gospel.  Shocked 
as  he  was  by  the  ugliness,  the  misery,  the  grinding  poverty 
of  Whitechapel,  his  vision  failed  at  this  time  to  penetrate 
beneath  the  surface  of  that  immense  quagmire.  He  v^as 
not  lacking  in  sympathy  with  the  poor,  but  he  believed  — 
and,  of  course,  in  one  sense  he  was  profoundly  right  —  that 
faith  in  God,  confidence  in  God,  and  hope  of  everlasting 
felicity  were  the  sovran  healing  of  all  humanity's  distress. 
It  was  not  until  later  in  his  life  that  he  realized  how 
economic  conditions  can  so  oppress  and  bear  upon  the  soul 
that  its  natural  functions  of  love,  worship,  and  aspiration 
may  be  almost  completely  inhibited.  But  even  when  he 
did  come  to  this  apprehension,  even  when  he  was  hot-foot 
among  the  social  reformers,  he  remained  in  nearly  every 
essential  a  Conservative,  and  never  ceased  to  lay  his  supreme 
emphasis  on  conversion  as  the  cure  of  individual  sorrow 
and  of  social  disorder. 

So  far  as  we  can  judge,  it  was  this  very  concentration 
of  purpose,  this  intense  singleness  of  view,  this  consum- 
ing one-ideaness  of  soul,  which  made  William  Booth  so 
successful  as  a  preacher  of  personal  religion.  For  he 
differed  from  other  Hebraists  in  the  depth  and  warmth  of 
his  human  sympathy,  so  that  while  he  was  blind  and  deaf 
to  the  political  question  he  was  all  eyes  and  all  ears  for 
the  sufferings  of  humanity.  He  had  nothing  but  Christ 
to  give  to  those  who  suffered,  but  this  Christ  was  given 
with  an  eagerness  and  a  passion  infinitely  more  convincing 
to  democracy  than  the  millennial  promises  of  the  politician. 
He  was  a  preacher  because  he  truly  and  earnestly  loved  his 
fellow-men;  and  he  practised,  so  far  as  his  slender  means 
would  allow,  the  charity  he  preached. 

The  character  of  the  man  as  a  preacher,  and  his  personal 
attraction,  may  be  clearly  seen  in  the  account  of  this  East 
London  Mission  which  I  have  been  so  fortunate  to  obtain 
from  his  first  London  convert,  an  old  Irishman,  who 
acted  for  a  considerable  time  as  an  official  in  the  movement. 

I  called  upon  this  veteran  at  a  house  in  Lancing,  half 
nursing  home  and  half  boarding  establishment,  where  he 
was  recovering  from  the  after-effects  of  an  operation. 


XXII]  THE  FIRST  LONDON  MISSION  337 

"  I  must  tell  you,"  said  he,  "  that  I  was  a  prize-fighter, 
and  in  those  days  we  fought  in  a  twenty-one- foot  ring,  not 
a  sixteen- foot  ring,  so  that  a  man  had  to  be  smart  to  hold 
his  own  with  a  quick  fighter.  It  was  because  I  was  as 
smart  as  the  wind  that  I  bested  what  I  took  on.  We  used 
to  fight  at  the  back  of  The  Blind  Beggar  public-house,  and 
it  was  there,  forty-eight  years  ago,  that  a  match  had  been 
arranged  between  me  and  another  Irishman  named  Fitz- 
Gerald,  the  finest  man  as  ever  walked  the  streets  of  White- 
chapel.  There  had  been  a  bit  of  a  chip  between  us  over 
our  winnings,  and  the  fight  was  to  be  a  big  one.  Well, 
one  morning  I  was  walking  towards  the  public-house,  but 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  way,  just  strolling  along  with 
my  hands  in  my  pocket,  when  I  came  across  General  Booth 
for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  I  met  him  promiscuously. 
That  was  on  the  26th  July,  1865.  I  looked  at  him.  He 
looked  at  me.  Something  in  the  man's  external  appear- 
ance took  hold  of  me  then  and  there.  I  stopped  dead  in  the 
street,  looking  at  him;  and  he  stopped,  too,  looking  at  me. 
At  first  I  thought  he  was  going  to  ask  me  the  way  some- 
where. I  could  see  he  was  a  minister,  for  he  wore  a  white 
choker  and  a  tall  hat,  and  I  thought  he  was  strange  to  the 
place.  But,  after  he  had  looked  at  me  a  long  while,  says 
he  very  sadly,  '  I'm  looking  for  work.'  I  was  taken  aback. 
'  I've  got  no  place,'  says  he,  '  to  put  my  head  in.'  I  got 
hold  of  some  coins  in  my  pocket,  and  was  just  going  to 
offer  them  to  him,  when  he  pointed  to  '  the  boys  '  outside 
the  public-house  just  opposite,  a  great  crowd  of  them,  and 
says  he,  '  look  at  those  men,'  he  says ;  '  look  at  them !  — 
forgotten  by  God  and  man.  Why  should  I  be  looking  for 
work?  There's  my  work,  over  there,  looking  for  me.  But 
I've  got  no  place,'  he  says,  *  where  I  can  put  my  head  in.' 
'  You're  right,  sir,'  I  said;  '  those  men  are  forgotten  by  God 
and  man,  and  if  you  can  do  anything  for  them  'twould  be 
a  great  work.'  And  what  made  me  say  that?  Sure,  it  was 
just  the  man's  external  appearance.  He  was  the  finest-look- 
ing gentleman  ever  you  saw  —  white-faced,  dark-eyed,  and 
a  great  black  beard  over  his  chest ;  sure  there  was  something 
strange  about  him  that  laid  a  hold  on  a  man.  W^ell,  he  told 
me  he  was  preaching  in  the  Mile  End  Road,  and  asked  me 


338  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

to  come  and  hear  him,  and  bring  some  of  the  boys  along 
with  me;  and  I  promised  that  I  would." 

I  asked  him  to  tell  me  whether  the  preacher  did  not 
say  anything  at  that  first  interview  which  accounted  in  some 
measure  for  this  instant  effect  upon  his  mind.  But  again 
and  again  he  protested  that  "  it  was  just  the  man's  external 
appearance,"  hinting  of  some  ghostly  emanation,  or  psychic 
influence,  which  laid  a  spell  upon  his  senses.  "  I  felt  I 
could  do  just  anything  for  that  fine-looking  gentleman." 

Then  he  proceeded,  "  On  the  next  day  I  was  to  fight 
FitzGerald.  I  said  to  myself,  *  This'll  be  the  last  fight  of 
your  life,'  for  I  was  still  thinking  of  the  minister;  and 
I'll  tell  you  the  candid  truth  now  that  it's  over-past,  as  I 
stripped  that  morning  I  thought  FitzGerald  would  kill  me. 
He  was  a  terrible  man,  taller  altogether  than  me,  and  fierce 
with  it,  and  proud,  too.  But  he  gave  up,  like  an  old  woman, 
after  an  hour  and  three-quarters.  Although  I'd  beaten 
him,  and  all  the  boys  were  making  a  hero  of  me,  I 
didn't  want  ever  to  fight  again,  and  as  soon  as  I  could  I 
went  off  to  the  Mile  End  Waste,  where  Mr.  Booth  was 
preaching.  Well,  I  think  he  was  the  most  impetuous  man 
I  ever  met.  There  he  was  holding  forth,  surrounded  by  the 
blackguards  of  Whitechapel,  who  in  them  days  were  the 
greatest  vagabonds  you  could  meet  anywhere  on  God's  earth. 
Some  were  mocking,  and  some  were  laughing;  but  Mr. 
Booth  he  shouted  at  them  finely,  and  then  gave  out  a  hymn, 
and  led  the  singing  till  he  just  drowned  their  noises,  or 
nearly  so.  Then  I  threw  off  my  coat,  and  walked  round 
the  ring  instead  of  joining  in  the  revelry,  and  in  two 
minutes  all  those  blackguards  were  as  quiet  as  lambs.  Well, 
when  the  meeting  was  over  Mr,  Booth  linked  hold  of  me, 
and,  said  he,  '  How  did  you  do  it  ? '  I  told  him  that  there 
were  better  men  than  me  in  the  crowd,  but  that  my 
nationality  covered  a  bit  of  that,  for  they  all  knew  an  Irish- 
man would  fight.  Then  he  looked  at  me  and  said,  '  You're 
not  happy;  you  know  you're  not  happy.'  'What  reason 
is  that?'  I  asked.  'You'll  perish  like  a  dog,'  he  said; 
'  you're  living  for  the  devil,  and  the  devil  will  have  you.' 
I  answered :  '  Who  made  a  prophet  of  you  ?  '  He  says, 
'  My  Father  in  Heaven.'     I  cast  down  my  eyes  at  that. 


XXII]  THE  FIRST  LONDON  MISSION  339 

Then  he  put  a  hand  on  my  shoulder,  and  says  he,  *  I'll 
make  a  man  of  you  yet.'  And  not  very  long  after  that 
he  had  me  down  at  the  penitent- form  after  one  of  his  ser- 
mons in  the  Tent,  and  he  came  to  me,  put  his  arm  round  me, 
and  says  he  in  my  ear,  '  You're  not  happy !  ' —  so  that  I  had 
to  cry  out  it  was  true,  for  I  was  everything  vile,  contaminat- 
ing, and  diabolical.  Then  he  prayed  with  me,  and  after- 
wards I  was  converted.  I  got  up  from  my  knees  ready 
to  die  for  that  man." 

I  asked  him  if  he  began  from  that  moment  to  work  for 
the  Mission. 

"  Work !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  I  became  manager  of  the 
Soup  Kitchen !  " 

He  told  me  that  William  Booth  never  spared  any  man 
who  worked  for  him,  and  that  during  those  first  years  of 
service  he  was  not  only  manager  of  the  food  distribution, 
but  took  the  meetings  in  the  slums  of  Shoreditch  ("  for  I 
was  a  bit  of  a  rough  myself  "),  acted  as  coachman  to  Mrs. 
Booth  —  who  was  terribly  nervous  of  driving  about  London 
—  and  was  "  more  or  less  "  the  first  lay  secretary  of  the 
Salvation  Army. 

"  Every  day  for  seven  years,"  he  said,  perhaps  letting 
his  imagination  go  a  little,  "  I  was  with  the  General  or  the 
General  was  with  me.  We  had  a  little  bit  of  a  shack  for 
an  office  and  for  dinner  there  was  always  a  piece  of  steak 
or  a  mutton-chop  —  he  hadn't  got  into  opulence  then  — 
which  we  shared  together.  He'd  preach  three  times  a  day 
on  that  bit  of  meat.  I  was  glad  when  he  wasn't  there,  for 
then  I  had  the  chop  or  the  steak  to  myself!  He  was  a 
hard  man,  though,  the  General  was.  I  remember  one  time 
there  was  some  groups  taken,  and  I  said  to  him,  *  I  should 
like  to  have  one  of  them  groups.'  *  You  shall,'  said  he. 
A  month  later  I  said  to  him,  '  You  haven't  given  me  one 
of  them  groups  yet.'  He  turned  round  on  me  sharp,  and 
says  he,  'Why  don't  you  buy  one?'  I  told  him  straight 
that  I'd  worked  for  him  night  and  day,  and  I  thought  it 
would  be  only  decent  for  him  to  give  me  one  of  the  groups. 
He  laughed  at  that,  and  turning  to  one  of  the  others  who 
was  present,  he  says,  '  Oh,  give  him  one,  if  he  won't  pay  for 
it.'     But  you  couldn't  be  angry  with  him." 


340  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

I  asked  him  if  he  himself  figured  in  this  group. 

"  Oh,  no !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Sure  it  was  just  a  group 
of  the  General  by  himself." 

He  told  me  how  the  General  prophesied  the  ruin  of  his 
married  life.  "  I  was  always  one  to  love  money,"  he  says 
very  honestly,  "  and  I  fell  in  love  with  a  woman  who  had 
a  fortune  of  £500.     When  I  told  the  General  that  I  wanted 

to  get  married,  he  said  to  me,  '  Brother  M ,  it's  money 

you're  marrying  for,  not  love.'  " 

"  Was  that  true  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  It  was  true.  Then  the  General  said,  '  You'll  lose  it 
all,  every  penny.'  And  that  was  true,  too.  It  was  a 
strange  prophecy.  My  poor  wife  died  hungry,  though  it 
was  not  for  want  of  money.  She  couldn't  eat  a  thing. 
She  died  of  hunger.  But  I  had  lost  every  penny  of  her 
fortune  all  the  same." 

He  told  us  that  he  went  into  the  business  of  an  estate 
agent  in  the  north  of  London,  remaining  a  Salvationist. 
"  I've  bought  and  sold  houses  for  years,"  he  said,  "  and 
now  I  do  no  work,  for  my  employers  have  pensioned  me 
off.  The  last  house  I  sold  was  the  whole  of  Muswell  Hill," 
he  concluded  proudly,  and  I  did  not  press  for  an  explana- 
tion. 

It  is  a  curious  reflection  that  the  personal  influence  of 
William  Booth  has  remained  with  this  old  man  all  his  life. 
He  underwent  a  very  serious  operation  in  19 13,  and  he 
was  visited  in  hospital  by  many  ministers  of  religion  but 
by  no  Salvationist.  This  seems  to  have  angered  him.  *'  I 
said  to  myself,"  he  relates,  "  that  I'd  have  no  more  to  do 
with  the  Army;  if  that  was  all  they  cared  for  me,  after 
nearly  fifty  years  of  service,  sure  I'd  be  better  without 
them."  And  then  he  smiles,  and  uses  a  charming  phrase, 
"  Ah,  but  I  wasn't  as  bad  as  my  mind !  "  The  trouble  was 
cleared  up,  and  when  he  left  the  hospital  it  was  as  a  faith- 
ful Salvationist.  "  I'm  told,"  he  says  proudly,  "  that  Gen- 
eral Bramwell  Booth  heard  of  my  feelings,  and  said  to  one 
of  the  Officers  at  Headquarters,  '  We'll  get  him  back.' 
God  bless  you,  he  knew  I  couldn't  desert !  " 

This  old  man's  testimony  to  the  earnestness  and  passion- 
ate sympathy  of  William  Booth  is  worth  recording:     "It 


xxiij  THE  FIRST  LONDON  MISSION  341 

was  the  poor  people  he  looked  for  from  start  to  finish. 
If  he  worked  other  people  hard,  he  worked  harder  himself. 
All  day  long  he  was  at  it,  preaching,  praying,  singing, 
writing,  talking,  journeying  —  always  for  the  poor.  There 
was  never  a  man  like  him  for  that." 

And  he  speaks,  too,  with  affection  of  Mrs.  Booth,  though 
her  extreme  timidity  seems  to  have  left  him  with  a  source 
of  continual  amusement.  "  She  wore  the  most  consecutive 
dress  ever  I  saw  on  a  woman,"  he  says;  "and  she'd  look 
at  you  in  a  queer  way,  smiling  out  of  her  eyes,  and  talk  to 
you  as  if  you  were  something  of  a  child.  I'd  drive  her  to 
meetings,  hand  the  horse  and  carriage  over,  and  go  inside 

with  her.     '  Brother  M ,'  she'd  say  to  me,  '  remember  I 

want  you  to  keep  the  Devil  out  of  this  meeting.'  And  many 
times  the  only  way  I  could  keep  the  Devil  out  was  by  throw- 
ing him  out,  for  Mrs.  Booth  would  go  to  some  queer  black- 
guard places,  same  as  the  General.  She  was  always  very 
gentle  and  quiet  in  her  preaching,  but  the  General  -was  the 
most  impetuous  man  I  ever  met.  It  seemed  as  if  he'd  tear 
the  soul  out  of  your  body.  And  then  in  the  midst  of  it  all 
there'd  be  a  bit  that  would  make  you  w^ant  to  cry,  or  a  tale 
that  would  set  you  laughing  fit  to  burst.  But  all  the  time 
you  felt  that  he  wanted  to  save  your  soul.  There  was  no 
doubt  about  that." 

The  account  which  Mrs.  Booth  gave  of  the  origin  of  the 
mission  to  East  London  tallies  with  that  of  the  old  Irishman. 
"  I  remember  well,"  she  said,  "  when  the  General  decided 
finally  to  give  up  the  evangelistic  life  and  to  devote  himself 
to  the  salvation  of  the  East  Enders.  He  had  come  home 
from  the  meeting  one  night,  tired  out  as  usual.  It  was  be- 
tween eleven  and  twelve  o'clock.  Flinging  himself  into  an 
easy-chair,  he  said  to  me,  '  Oh,  Kate,  as  I  passed  by  the  doors 
of  the  flaming  gin-palaces  to-night,  I  seemed  to  hear  a  voice 
sounding  in  my  ears,  "  Where  can  you  go  and  find  such 
heathen  as  these,  and  where  is  there  so  great  a  need  for 
your  labours  ?  "  And  I  felt  as  though  I  ought  at  every  cost 
to  stop  and  preach  to  those  East  End  multitudes.'  I  re- 
member the  emotion  that  this  produced  in  my  mind.  I 
sat  gazing  into  the  fire,  and  the  Devil  whispered  to  me, 
*  This    means    another   new    departure  —  another    start    in 


342  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

life.'  The  question  of  our  support  constituted  a  serious 
difficulty.  Hitherto  we  had  been  able  to  meet  our  expenses 
by  the  collections  which  we  had  made  from  our  more  re- 
spectable audiences.  But  it  was  impossible  to  suppose  that 
w^e  could  do  so  among  the  poverty-stricken  East  Enders. 
We  had  not  then  the  measure  of  light  upon  this  subject 
which  subsequent  events  afforded,  and  we  were  afraid  even 
to  ask  for  a  collection  in  such  a  locality.  Nevertheless,  I 
did  not  answer  discouragingly.  After  a  momentary  pause 
for  thought  and  prayer,  I  replied,  '  Well,  if  you  feel  you 
ought  to  stay,  stay.  We  have  trusted  the  Lord  once  for 
our  support,  and  we  can  trust  Him  again/  There  was  not 
in  our  minds,  at  the  time  we  came  to  this  decision,  the 
remotest  idea  of  the  marvellous  work  which  has  since  sprung 
into  existence." 

William  Booth  himself  has  given  the  following  account 
of  this  fresh  movement  in  his  life:  "  I  saw  multitudes  of 
my  fellow-creatures  not  only  without  God  and  hope,  but 
sunk  in  the  most  desperate  forms  of  wickedness  and  misery 
that  can  be  conceived.  I  went  out  and  looked  on  the 
wretched  sons  and  daughters  of  debauchery  and  vice  and 
crime  who  were  all  about  me.  The  drunkenness,  and 
harlotry,  and  pauperism,  and  slumdom,  and  blasphemy,  and 
infidelity  of  these  crowds  had  a  fascination  for  me.  ...  I 
not  only  saw  but  compassionated  the  people  sunk  in  the 
sin  and  wretchedness  that  I  beheld,  and  the  everlasting  woe 
that  I  knew  must  follow." 

It  will  be  seen  both  from  these  accounts  and  from  that 
of  the  old  Irishman  already  quoted,  that  it  was  the  spectacle 
of  sin  and  suffering  which  moved  William  Booth  to  his 
decision.  The  incessant  degradation  and  the  multiplied 
misery  of  East  London  were  to  him  like  veritable  and  heart- 
breaking human  cries  for  help;  he  could  not  walk  a  pace 
through  these  dreadful  streets  without  acute  suffering;  he 
had  no  rest  until  he  gave  himself  to  the  work  of  rescue. 
And  yet  some  years  were  still  to  pass  before  he  realized  the 
true  nature  of  his  vocation. 

Soon  after  the  Booths'  decision  to  give  themselves  to 
this  work,  a  step  which  meant  at  that  time  a  voluntary 
return  to  poverty,  Mr.  Samuel  Morley,  the  philanthropist. 


XXII]  THE  FIRST  LONDONi  MISSION  343 

hearing  of  William  Booth's  courageous  preaching  in  the 
Mile  End  Road,  invited  the  missionary  to  call  and  see  him. 
We  learn  from  Commissioner  Booth-Tucker  that  the  philan- 
thropist was  cordially  impressed  by  the  account  he  received 
of  the  Mission.  "  The  open-air  meetings  on  the  Mile  End 
Waste,  surrounded  by  blaspheming  infidels  and  boisterous 
drunkards;  the  processions  down  the  Whitechapel  Road, 
pelted  with  garbage ;  the  placards  carried  with  striking 
texts;  the  penitent-form  and  the  testifying  of  the  new  con- 
verts, enlisted  his  unbounded  sympathy." 

One  result  of  this  conversation  was  a  generous  contribu- 
tion on  Mr.  Morley's  part  towards  the  support  of  William 
Booth  and  his  family.  It  came,  as  it  happened,  just  at  a 
moment  when  William  Booth  was  in  sore  need  of  such 
assistance,  for  some  of  his  friends  —  and  there  were  not 
many  —  had  forsaken  him.  "  Some  of  them,"  says  Com- 
missioner Booth-Tucker,  "  objected  to  his  holiness  teaching. 
Others  considered  that  he  laid  too  much  stress  upon  re- 
pentance and  works,  and  too  little  upon  bare  faith.  Not  a 
few  grew  weary  of  the  ceaseless  open-airs  and  processions, 
with  the  mobbing  and  mockery  of  the  crowd." 

The  extraordinary  courage  and  tenacity  of  the  man  were 
never  exhibited  more  finely  than  in  the  early  years  of  the 
Christian  Mission.  The  flourish  of  trumpets  had  died 
away;  the  excitement  of  novel  proceedings  was  at  an  end; 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  over-fervent  had  evaporated.  He 
was  faced  by  an  almost  boundless  hostility  and  an  almost 
boundless  indifference.  Surrounded  by  his  little  band  of 
disciples,  he  confronted  the  ridicule,  the  hatred,  the  scorn, 
and  the  bitter  malice  of  perhaps  the  most  destitute  and 
degraded  place  in  the  world.  It  was  like  preaching  in  Hell ; 
for  the  atheism  of  East  London  in  those  davs  was  a  fierce 
and  oppugnant  atheism,  an  atheism  which  hated  the  very 
name  of  God,  and  to  which  Jesus  appeared  as  the  arch- 
deceiver  of  the  human  race.  Attacked  on  every  side  by 
those  who  hated  religion,  and  regarded  with  an  amused 
curiosity  or  a  provoking  ridicule  by  those  who  neither 
knew  nor  wanted  to  know  about  religion,  William  Booth 
doggedly  continued  his  work,  and  never  once  lost  heart. 
It  is  remarkable  that  often  as  he  may  have  doubted  in  the 


344  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

midst  of  his  successful  crusades  as  a  revivalist  preacher, 
when  thousands  were  flocking  to  country  chapels  to  hear 
him  preach,  he  never  once  lost  heart  in  those  early  and  most 
difficult  days  of  the  Christian  Mission  in  East  London. 

Mr.  Morley's  support  came  at  the  right  moment,  but 
William  Booth  was  still  faced  by  the  abysmal  problems 
which  his  Mission  had  discovered  to  him.  He  wanted 
more  helpers,  and  the  churches  sent  no  one  to  his  aid.  He 
wanted  a  hall,  but  he  had  only  a  weather-beaten  tent. 
Nevertheless  the  man  fought  on,  making  converts  here  and 
there,  encouraging  those  who  were  faithful,  and  working 
everybody  who  offered  him  the  least  assistance  almost  to 
death. 

There  he  was  in  East  London  —  an  eccentric,  an  in- 
novator. Churches  and  Chapels  were  equally  cold,  equally 
hostile.  Athanasius  scarcely  had  Christendom  so  heartily 
and  unanimously  against  him. 

He  called  the  open  air  his  "  cathedral."  He  stood  up 
before  the  vilest  people  imaginable  and  proclaimed  the 
Gospel  of  Love.  He  confronted  the  most  abominable 
people- in- London,  and  denounced  sin  with  the  unqualified 
energy  of  an  inspired  prophet.  He  was  fearless.  One 
thing  must  be  carefully  remembered,  he  never  lost  his 
humanity.  He  could  draw  to  his  side  such  a  person  as  the 
Irishman  we  have  just  spoken  about.  He  inspired  some  of 
his  followers  with  an  affection  which  was  only  this  side  of 
idolatry.  And  he  could  make  the  worst  of  people  feel  that 
he  cared  for  them.  If  he  had  lacked  this  humanity,  it  is 
probable  that  the  mob  would  have  stoned  him  to  death. 

It  is  told  in  many  places  that  the  wind  one  night  blew 
down  the  old  tent  in  Whitechapel.  The  Irishman,  however, 
tells  me  that  the  cords  of  the  tent  were  cut  by  a  gang  of 
roughs.  He  says  that  he  knew  about  it,  but  said  nothing 
to  the  General  for  fear  of  adding  to  his  sorrows.  "  It  was 
better  for  him  to  think,"  he  says,  "  that  the  wind  blew  it 
down." 

The  loss  of  this  tent  drove  the  Mission  into  an  old  danc- 
ing-saloon. "  The  people  danced  in  it,"  says  WilHam 
Booth,  "  until  the  small  hours  of  the  Sunday  morning,  and 
then   the   converts   carried    in   the   seats,    which   had    for- 


XXII]  THE  FIRST  LONDON  MISSION  345 

tunately  not  been  destroyed  with  the  tent.  It  was  a  long, 
narrow  room,  holding  about  600  people.  The  proprietor 
combined  the  two  professions  of  dancing-master  and  pho- 
tographer, the  latter  being  specially  pushed  on  Sundays. 
In  the  front  room,  through  which  all  the  congregation  had 
to  pass  from  the  open  street,  sat  the  mistress  colouring  pho- 
tographs, whilst  some  one  at  the  door  touted  for  business. 
The  photography  was  done  at  the  top  of  the  house,  and  cus- 
tomers had  to  pass  on  their  way  up  by  a  sort  of  parlour 
that  was  open  to  our  hall.  It  was  a  regular  thing  for  them 
to  pause,  and  listen  to  the  message  of  salvation  as  they 
went  upstairs  on  their  Sabbath-breaking  business." 

He  speaks  of  the  wonderful  meetings  held  in  this  dancing- 
saloon,  and  relates  that  regularly  during  those  Sundays  he 
gave  three,  occasionally  four,  open-air  addresses,  led  two 
or  three  processions  through  the  streets,  and  conducted 
three  meetings  in  the  dancing-saloon.  "  The  power  and 
happiness  of  the  work,"  he  says,  "  carried  me  along,  and  in 
that  room  the  foundation  was  really  laid  of  all  that  has 
since  come  to  pass." 

The  dancing-saloon  was  only  available  on  Sundays. 
"  For  week-nights,"  he  says,  '*  we  secured  an  old  wool 
warehouse  in  one  of  the  lowest  parts  of  Bethnal  Green. 
Unfortunately,  the  windows  opened  on  the  street.  When 
crowded  ...  it  became  oppressively  hot,  especially  in 
summer.  If  we  opened  the  windows  the  boys  threw  stones 
and  mud  and  fireworks  through,  and  fired  trains  of  gun- 
powder, laid  from  the  doors  inwards.  But  our  people  got 
used  to  this,  shouting  '  Hallelujah! '  when  the  crackers  ex- 
ploded and  the  powder  flashed.  ...  It  was  an  admirable 
training-ground  for  the  development  of  the  Salvation  Army 
spirit." 

Mr.  W.  T.  Stead  relates  some  of  the  Christian  Mission's 
troubles  in  a  monograph  on  General  Booth  published  in 
1 89 1,  now  said  to  be  very  scarce.  "They  migrated  to  a 
stable,  from  which  they  were  ejected  for  disturbing  a  gym- 
nasium on  the  other  side  of  the  wall.  They  found  a  resting- 
place  for  themselves  in  an  old  penny  gaff  at  Limehouse,  and 
then  established  themselves  also  on  the  site  of  an  old  beer- 
house, The  Eastern  Star.     It  was  not,  however,  until  they 


.v/ 


346  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

took  the  Effingham  Theatre  that  they  considered  their 
work  as  firmly  rooted  with  some  prospects  of  permanence." 
This  was  in  1867. 

One  of  General  Booth's  later  sayings  affords  us  a  pretty 
accurate  view  of  the  attitude  now  adopted  towards  him 
by  the  Churches.  "  The  day  has  gone  when  the  priest  and 
Levite  are  content  topass  by  the  wounded  man.  They^must 
needs  stop  now,  turn  back,  and  punch  the  head  of  any 
good  Samaritan  who  dares  to  come  to  the  rescue."  Of 
course  there  is  exaggeration  in  this  saying,  which  was  ut- 
tered after  bitter  attacks  on  his  Darkest  England  Scheme, 
but  it  is  picturesque  and  explosive  enough  to  make  us  feel 
the  loneliness  in  which  William  Booth  attempted  to  reach 
the  masses. 

It  was  this  attitude  of  the  Churches,  more  than  anything 
else,  which  transformed  the  Christian  Mission  from  a 
purely  pioneer  agency  into  an  organized  society  aiming  at  a 
permanent  corporate  life.  It  cannot  be  too  clearly  known 
that  one  object  of  William  Booth  in  going  out  to  preach 
Christianity  in  the  streets  of  London  was  to  help  the 
Churches.  He  recognized,  and  never  ceased  to  recognize, 
that  there  must  be  a  pastoral  as  well  as  an  evangelistic  side 
of  Christian  propaganda.  He  never  attacked  the  idea  of  a 
resident  minister  domiciled  in  a  particular  locality  and  serv- 
ing the  needs  of  a  community  of  Christians,  He  was  in- 
deed sincerely  convinced  that  a  pastorate  was  not  merely  a 
wise  provision  of  the  Church,  but  that  it  was  essential  to 
Christian  life.  His  object  at  the  beginning  of  his  career 
in  East  London  was  to  rescue  from  sin  those  who  never 
\d^  attended  church  or  chapel  and  to  send  them  as  converted 
men  and  women  to  the  ministers  of  the  various  denomina- 
tions. It  was  only  when  he  discovered  that  the  Churches 
either  failed  to  keep  these  people,  or,  as  in  some  cases,  de- 
liberately turned  their  backs  upon  such  sorry  "  riff-raff," 
that  he  conceived  the  idea  of  a  Mission  composed  almost 
entirely  of  its  own  converts. 

In  these  early  years,  when  he  was  mercilessly  attacked 
from  all  quarters  as  a  bombastic  clown  or  as  a  raving  fanatic 
bent  upon  setting  up  a  new  sect,  few  people  were  allowed 
to  know  the  real  truth.     But  before  the  end  of  his  career  it 


XXII]  THE  FIRST  LONDON  MISSION  347 

was  recognized  that  he  had  set  out  with  no  antagonism  to- 
wards the  Churches,  and  that  it  was  the  circumstance  of 
the  Churches'  ill-will  towards  his  converts  which  drove  him 
to  the  establishment  of  a  distinct  organization. 

To  follow  with  intelligence  the  rise  and  history  of  the 
Salvation  Army  it  is  necessary  to  recognise  the  truth,  and 
also  to  bear  in  mind  that  William  Booth  began  his  extraor- 
dinary work  in  East  London  as  a  pure  Hebraist,  and  with 
but  little  interest  in  social  and  economic  questions. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

A   SUMMING    UP    IN    MIDDLE   AGE 
1878 

At  the  time  when  he  transformed  the  Christian  Mission 
into  the  Salvation  Army  and  became  a  figure  of  world-wide 
significance  and  a  target  for  the  scorn  and  bitter  hatred  of 
nearly  the  whole  community,  William  Booth  was  entering 
his  fiftieth  year.  The  work  which  he  had  done  in  the  prov- 
inces, culminating  in  thirteen  years  of  incredible  labour 
among  the  poor  of  Whitechapel,  might  very  easily  have 
exhausted  the  strength  and  energy  of  a  man  more  power- 
fully fitted  for  such  trying  exertions.  But  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if  this  extraordinary  person,  whose  body  was 
continually  breaking  down  under  the  strain  his  iron  and 
resistless  will  imposed  upon  it,  entered  upon  a  new  lease 
of  Hfe,  and  saw  a  more  splendid  vision  before  his  eyes,  at  a 
time  when  most  over-worked  men  are  looking  forward  to 
the  ease  and  leisure  of  retirement. 

We  should  give  a  false  impression  of  his  character  if  we 
emphasized  the  headlong  and  fiery  energy  of  his  will  and 
mentioned  only  in  occasional  passages  those  pleasures  and 
relaxations  of  his  private  life  which  certainly  helped  to  keep 
him  human,  even  if  they  failed  to  modify  the  intensity  and 
the  narrowness  of  his  Hebraism,  We  propose,  therefore, 
to  give  in  this  place,  before  proceeding  to  follow  the  history 
of  the  Salvation  Army,  some  further  particulars  of  William 
Booth's  private  life  and  to  attempt  a  brief  summary  of  his 
chief  characteristics.  The  danger  before  us  in  approaching 
the  tumultuous  history  of  the  Salvation  Army  without  some 
such  reference,  is  to  lead  the  reader  to  the  conclusion  that 
General  Booth  was  one  of  those  hot-brained  enthusiasts,  one 
of  those  intolerant  fire-eaters,  whose  natures  are  so  radically 
different  from  the  rest  of  mankind  that  they  can  never  ex- 
cite the  afifection  of  posterity. 

It  is  with  a  feehng  of  real  gratitude  that  one  learns  of 

348 


[cHAP.xxiii]       SUMMING  UP  IN  MIDDLE  AGE      349 

the  General's  indulgent  habit  of  taking  a  short  nap  every 
day  after  the  midday  meal.  This  habit,  contracted  during 
his  visit  to  Cornwall,  lasted  to  the  end  of  his  life.  He  made 
up  to  some  extent  for  the  long  sleepless  hours  to  which  he 
was  often  condemned  at  night  by  these  brief  snatches  of 
sleep  in  the  middle  day;  and  wherever  he  might  be,  or  on 
whatever  business  he  might  be  engaged,  he  insisted  upon 
his  nap  and  could  go  to  sleep  almost  in  the  act  of  closing 
his  eyes.  From  these  slumbers  he  awakened  with  renewed 
energy  for  the  other  half  of  the  day's  work. 

Literature  provided  him  with  the  easiest  escape  from 
the  obsession  of  his  one  idea.  He  was  a  great  reader,  if 
not  a  very  judicious  or  a  very  catholic-minded  reader.  He 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  religious  fiction ;  but,  with 
the  exception  of  Dickens,  whom  he  found  intolerable,  he 
did  occasionally  browse  among  the  novelists.  He  had  well- 
nigh  unbounded  admiration  for  Les  Miserables  and  Jane 
Eyre;  as  a  boy  he  had  taken  a  deep  pleasure  in  the  tales 
of  Fenimore  Cooper;  and  in  early  youth  he  found  a  new 
world  opening  before  his  vision  in  the  romances  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  to  which  he  returned  in  middle  life.  But  he 
always  liked  to  have  some  book  at  hand  which  attempted 
to  deal,  or  professed  to  deal,  in  a  spirit  of  sober  and  exact 
truth,  with  the  real  facts  of  human  existence  —  such  as 
books  of  histor^^  biography,  and  travel.  He  was  absorbed 
for  some  time  by  the  French  Revolution,  and  would  defend 
Robespierre  and  Danton  with  a  good  deal  of  eloquence. 
Carlisle's  epic  was  the  chief  source  of  his  information. 
He  made  an  effort,  but  failed,  to  read  the  whole  of  the 
same  author's  Frederick.  He  was  never  tired  of  reading 
Froude's  CcBsar,  and  was  a  student  of  Burke's  career. 
In  the  literature  of  political  economy  he  was  influenced  by 
Mallock  and  by  Professor  Flint's  Socialism. 

Literature  afforded  him  the  easiest  way  of  escape  from 
his  work,  but  the  happiest  and  dearest  of  his  distractions 
was  the  countryside.  He  had  a  particular  love  for  rivers. 
He  was  fond,  not  only  of  landscape,  but  of  the  business 
of  the  fields.  Nothing  in  nature  more  stirred  his  admira- 
tion than  a  horse  —  a  good  horse.  He  told  me  on  more 
than  one  occasion  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  spectacle 


350  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  a  strong  horse  moving  finely  and  freely  gave  him  waves 
of  strength,  inspired  him  with  a  feeling  of  force  and  power. 
He  was  very  fond  of  riding  and  driving,  but  the  mere  sight 
of  a  good,  well-fed,  well-groomed,  and  well-handled  horse 
gave  him  quite  as  much  inspiration  as  either  of  these  ex- 
ercises. 

In  the  matter  of  field  games,  he  was  without  a  single 
liking;  indeed  he  was  intolerably  sceptical  of  their  value. 
He  had  loved  fishing  as  a  youth,  and  as  a  young  minister 
he  had  once  tasted  the  pleasures  of  shooting;  but  so  far 
as  we  are  able  to  discover  he  never  took  part  in  a  game  of 
cricket,  football,  or  tennis.  Any  game  which  absorbed 
grown  men's  attention  to  the  exclusion  of  the  great  end 
of  life  incurred  his  condemnation.  Games  were  only  to  be 
regarded  as  diversions.  The  danger  of  cricket  and  football 
lay  in  their  tendency  to  deflect  the  mind  of  men  from  the 
serious  purposes  of  life.  But  his  contempt  for  the  majority 
of  such  games  was  perhaps  coloured,  if  not  directly  inspired, 
by  a  kind  of  inability  to  understand  their  attraction. 

With  his  children,  as  we  have  seen,  he  played  a  very 
hearty  game  of  "  Fox  and  Geese,"  and  Bramwell  Booth 
informs  us,  with  a  smile  that  almost  writes  a  chapter  of  his 
father's  biography — "He  was  always  the  Fox."  Domi- 
nant and  masterful  everywhere,  he  was  dominant  and  mas- 
terful even  in  the  games  of  his  children,  throwing  himself 
into  all  their  pleasures  with  a  quite  boyish  zest,  and  insist- 
ing that  whatever  they  did  should  be  done  thoroughly.  It 
is  characteristic  of  him  that  he  taught  his  boys  to  buy  and 
sell  postage-stamps  to  advantage,  concerning  himself  in 
their  collection,  and  encouraging  them  so  to  conduct  this 
business  that  they  might  be  independent  of  pocket-money. 
In  the  same  manner,  he  did  not  merely  cast  a  paternal  eye 
upon  the  menagerie  in  the  garden,  but  on  occasion  took  an 
active  part  in  "  the  rigging  up  of  rabbit-hutches,"  in  the 
serious  side  of  the  silkworm  enterprise,  and  in  the  breeding 
and  sale  of  guinea-pigs.  Something  of  the  naturalist 
showed  itself  in  the  interest  he  manifested  from  the  very 
first  in  the  children's  collection  of  moths,  and  particularly 
in  one  of  the  boys'  early  enthusiasm  for  ants. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  with  such  a  father  the  children 


GENERAL  BRAMWELL  BOOTH 


xxiii]  SUMMING  UP  IN  MIDDLE  AGE  351 

did  not  see  anything  odd  or  tyrannical  in  his  religious 
habits.  They  worshipped  him ;  and  when  he  told  them 
about  the  Bible  they  accepted  every  word  he  said  without 
a  moment's  question.  He  encouraged  them  to  discuss  every 
subject  under  the  sun,  delighted  indeed  to  set  them  arguing; 
but  never  was  the  fundamental  question  of  the  Bible's 
absolute  authority  even  questioned.  It  was  a  household 
founded  upon  the  Bible.  The  children  might  and  did  argue 
about  the  French  Revolution,  about  socialism,  about  history, 
about  characters  in  fiction ;  but  the  one  unquestioned  and 
unquestionable  centre  of  their  life  was  the  unerring  author- 
ity of  the  Bible  as  the  Word  of  God. 

One  of  the  indoor  games  which  he  liked,  and  at  this  time 
played  occasionally,  was  draughts,  in  which  he  seems  to 
have  been  something  of  a  master.  But  above  everything 
else  he  liked  to  romp  with  his  children,  to  surrender  him- 
self to  their  animal  spirits,  and  to  let  them  pull  him  about 
on  the  floor,  to  tumble  over  his  prostrate  body,  and  to  drag 
him  up  by  his  hands  to  his  feet. 

He  believed  in  discipline  and  punishment,  and  his  chil- 
dren accepted  this  faith  as  part  of  their  religion.  He  would 
be  indulgent  and  kind;  he  interested  himself  heart  and  soul 
in  their  games;  but  let  one  of  them  break  a  rule,  let  them 
even  say  something  foolish  in  discussion  or  arrive  five  ^min- 
utes late  for  a  meal,  and  they  were  at  once  made  acquainted 
with  his  discipline.  "  I  think,  looking  back,"  says  one  of 
the  sons,  "that  he  was  over-stern  on  occasion;  I  am  per- 
fectly sure  he  flogged  me  several  times  without  just  cause ; 
but  I  am  equally  certain  that  the  spirit  of  discipline  which 
ruled  the  household  was  salutary.  None  of  us  grew  up 
slackers;  none  of  us  played  with  life.  How  many  families 
go  to  pieces  for  want  of  discipline  and  punishment?  " 

That  William  Booth  was  in  some  respects  a  strict  father 
may  be  judged  from  the  following  narrative.  A  slight 
discrepancy  was  discovered  at  the  last  moment  in  the  ac- 
counts of  the  Christian  Mission.  Bramwell  Booth,  then  a 
boy  of  thirteen,  was  set  to  help  in  discovering  the  mistake. 
For  a  stretch  of  seventy-two  hours,  without  sleep,  the  boy 
toiled  through  all  the  jumble  of  figures,  and  at  last  found 
where  the  error  lay.     So  delighted  were  the  committee  that 


352  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

they  subscribed  and  made  him  a  present  of  £5.  Of  this  £5 
his  father  allowed  him  to  keep  ten  shillings.  "  I  want  the 
balance,"  he  said,  "  for  the  rice  pudding,"  referring  to  that 
rice  pudding  which  always  appeared  on  the  dinner-table 
challenging  any  member  of  the  family  to  go  away  hungry. 

Another  instance  may  be  given.  In  the  year  1872, 
William  Booth  entered  upon  a  commercial  speculation,  dic- 
tated by  sympathy  with  the  sufferings  of  the  poor.  He  set 
up  six  or  seven  shops,  where  soup  was  always  to  be  fur- 
nished night  and  day,  and  where  a  dinner  of  three 
courses  could  be  bought  for  sixpence.  This  venture  of 
"  Food  for  the  Million  " —  the  first,  I  believe,  of  its  kind  — 
was  a  very  considerable  success.  Bramwell  Booth,  a  lad 
of  sixteen,  was  the  manager  of  this  difficult  business.  He 
bought  the  necessary  provisions,  he  inspected  the  depots, 
he  examined  the  accounts,  he  supervised  in  its  details  the 
work  of  the  assistants.  And  for  this  labour,  a  labour  which 
might  have  tried  the  powers  of  a  practised  business  man, 
he  was  rewarded  by  his  father,  who  feared  the  effect  of 
money,  with  a  wage  which  most  boys  would  have  regarded 
as  pocket-money. 

We  must  bear  in  mind,  however,  that  William  Booth  was 
not  snatching  at  the  profits  of  this  enterprise  in  the  spirit 
of  a  money-grabber.  He  needed  every  penny  he  could  get 
for  the  expenses  of  his  household  and  for  his  innumerable 
charities.  The  domestic  expenditure  was  a  serious  charge 
upon  his  precarious  income.  Bramwell  Booth  has  a  most 
distinct  memory  of  his  father's  financial  worries.  "  He 
had  an  anxious  temperament,"  he  tells  me ;  "  he  was  always 
expecting  ruin."  This  business  of  "  Food  for  the  Million," 
even  in  its  prosperity,  did  not  allay  his  anxiety.  His  chil- 
dren were  a  growing  expense;  Mrs.  Booth  was  continually 
falling  ill ;  the  future  seemed  never  to  promise  a  rest  from 
his  burdens.  In  1878  trouble  arose  with  the  managers  of 
his  scattered  shops,  competition  from  men  with  large  capi- 
tal threatened  them  with  ruin,  and  the  worry  of  the  thing 
interfered  with  his  work  at  the  Mission.  In  a  moment 
of  disappointment  he  abandoned  the  business  altogether. 

At  this  point  we  may  refer  with  convenience  to  the 
finances  of  William  Booth.     He  aimed  from  the  very  first 


MRS.  BRAMWELL  BOOTH 


XXIII]  SUMML\G  UP  IN  MIDDLE  AGE  353 

for  an  income  of  £300  a  year,  with  a  house  provided  for 
him.  Mr.  Rabbits,  in  the  early  days,  offered  to  settle  money 
on  him,  but  he  replied,  "  I  am  not  going  to  settle  down. 
You  must  keep  it."  At  the  age  of  thirty-two,  a  similar 
offer  was  made  by  another  admirer,  and  again  refused. 
He  refused,  as  we  have  seen,  the  £10,000  proffered  to  him 
for  his  Mission,  conditionally,  by  Mr.  Henry  Reed  of 
Tunbridge  Wells;  but  he  accepted,  much  later  on,  £5,000 
which  the  same  sympathizer  settled  upon  him  uncondition- 
ally, and  which  became  the  only  capital  he  ever  possessed 
to  the  end  of  his  days.  Mr.  Frank  Crossley,  the  engineer 
of  Manchester,  more  than  once  pressed  upon  William  Booth, 
for  whom  he  had  a  warm  admiration,  blank  cheques  to  be 
filled  up  for  his  domestic  needs;  but  invariably  these  per- 
sonal cheques  were  returned.  Later  on,  when  Mrs.  Booth 
was  dying,  Mr.  Crossley  offered  temporary  help  which  was 
accepted,  and  in  the  course  of  three  or  four  years  this  gen- 
erous good  man  subscribed  some  £60,000  to  the  funds  of 
the  Salvation  Army. 

The  reader  will  remember  that  in  one  of  his  letters  to 
Mrs.  Booth,  quoted  in  Chapter  XIX,  p.  305,  William  Booth, 
writing  from  Manchester  in  a  time  of  poverty  and  desola- 
tion, lays  emphasis  on  the  satisfaction  he  feels  in  his  inde- 
pendence and  freedom:  "  I  do  feel  a  measure  of  comfort 
from  the  thought  that  we  are  securing  our  own  livelihood 
.  .  .  and  not  hanging  on  to  any  one.  That  thought  has 
been  like  a  canker  at  my  heart  of  late.  It  must  not  be 
after  that  fashion."  If  this  letter  could  have  been  published 
at  a  time  when  men  of  repute  and  newspapers  of  distinction 
were  attacking  the  General  of  the  Salvation  Army  on  the 
financial  question,  and  when  rumours  of  the  basest  kind, 
calumnies  of  the  most  odious  nature  were  filling  the  air, 
even  in  East  London  itself,  how  great  a  reproval  would 
have  been  administered  to  the  traducers  of  William  Booth. 

When  his  will  was  published,  the  world  offered  its  tribute 
of  admiration  to  the  honour  of  this  true  friend  of  the  poor; 
but  even  then  it  was  not  known  that  from  the  first  the  very 
thought  of  "  hanging  on  to  any  one  "  had  been  "  like  a 
canker  "  at  the  heart  of  this  honest,  struggling,  and  much- 
enduring  man.     His  income,  even  with  the  interest  arising 


354  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

from  Mr.  Reed's  £5,000,  never  exceeded  £600.  His  aver- 
age expenditure  on  his  wife  and  family  v^as  between  £400 
and  £500  a  year. 

After  the  disposal  of  his  business,  "  Food  for  the  Mil- 
lion," William  Booth  largely  supported  himself  by  the  sale 
of  books,  his  own  and  Mrs.  Booth's.  Between  1878  and 
1890  these  books  produced  an  income  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  £400  a  year. 

It  is  remarkable  that  while  General  Booth  quite  properly 
made  profit  out  of  the  sale  of  these  books,  he  refused  to 
take  the  advice  of  the  late  Mr,  John  Cory  —  one  of  the 
most  generous  supporters  of  the  Army  —  in  the  matter  of 
The  War  Cry.  Many  people,  perhaps,  are  unaware  that 
The  War  Cry  is  one  of  the  valuable  newspaper  properties 
of  the  world,  and  that  with  outside  advertisements  it  might 
be  made  a  still  greater  financial  success.  By  keeping  this 
weekly  periodical  as  his  own  property,  as  Mr.  Cory  and 
others  counselled  him  to  do,  even  without  the  aid  of  out- 
side advertisements  William  Booth  could  have  secured  to 
himself  a  very  considerable  income.  But  he  refused  the 
idea.  He  argued  that  he  had  enough  to  live  upon,  and 
that  The  War  Cry  belonged  to  the  Army.  Every  penny  of 
profit  earned  by  this  publication  has  gone  to  the  funds  of 
the  Army.  But  more  than  this.  On  several  occasions 
wealthy  admirers  of  William  Booth  pressed  on  him  large 
sums  of  money  for  the  purpose  of  endowing  his  family. 
He  invariably  refused.  In  one  case,  a  lady  was  so  angered 
by  his  refusal  that  she  threatened  to  strike  the  Salvation 
Army  out  of  her  will  and  to  cease  her  subscription  from  that 
moment.  But  the  General  remained  adamant.  He  did 
not  need  the  money,  he  said.  "  Give  it  to  me  and  I  shall 
pass  it  on  to  the  Army,  just  as  the  least  of  my  Officers 
would  do."  This  was  not  the  only  occasion  on  which  the 
General  refused  large  sums  pressed  upon  him  by  those  who 
admired  his  work  and  were  acquainted  with  the  straitened 
circumstances  of  his  domestic  life, 

I  have  reason  to  believe  that  William  Booth  had  a  great 
fear  of  money.  The  memory  of  his  father  lasted  with  him 
into  old  age.  He  felt  in  himself  the  possibility  of  becoming 
a  money-lover.     "Criminal  instincts?"  he  once  exclaimed 


xxm]  SUMMING  UP  IN  MIDDLE  AGE  355 

to  me,   "  why,   we  have  all  got  them.     I   have  got  them. 
My  father  w  as  a  grab,  a  get.     He  had  been  bred  in  poverty. 
He  determined  to  grow  rich;  and  he  did.     He  grew  very 
rich,  because  he  lived  without  God  and  simply  worked  for 
money;  and  when  he  lost  it  all  his  heart  broke  with  it, 
and  he  died  miserably.     I  have  inherited  the  grab  from  him. 
I  want  to  get.     I  am  always  wanting  to  get."     It  is  more 
than  probable  that  when  he  gave  Bramwell  Booth  only  ten 
shillings  out  of  the  five  pounds  the  boy  had  earned,  and 
when  he  paid  him  the  small  weekly  sum  for  very  difficult 
and  arduous  work,  he  was  inspired  by  a  dread  of  encourag- 
ing in  his  son  that  disposition  to  grab  and  to  get  which  he 
had  inherited  from  his  own  father  and  which  he  had  la- 
boured to  convert  into  a  grabbing  and  a  getting  of  the  souls 
of  men. 

Few  of  his  words  are  more  illuminating  than  those  which 
he  once  addressed  to  an  Officer  of  the  Salvation  Army. 
"  I  have  been  trying,"  he  said,  "  all  my  life  to  stretch  out 
my  arms  so  as  to  reach  with  one  hand  the  poor,  and  at 
the  same  time  keep  the  other  in  touch  with  the  rich.  But 
my  arms  are  not  long  enough.  I  find  that  when  I  am  in 
touch  with  the  poor  I  lose  my  hold  upon  the  rich,  and 
when  I  reach  up  to  the  rich  I  let  go  of  the  poor.  And  I 
very  much  doubt  whether  God  Almighty's  arms  are  long 
enough  for  this." 

To  sum  up.     At  the  time  when  William  Booth  trans- 
formed the  Christian  Mission  into  the  Salvation  Army,  he 
was  a  delicate,  middle-aged,  family  man,  with  a  precarious 
income  of  some  four  or  five  hundred  pounds  a  year,  and  an 
infinitely  larger  number  of  enemies  to  oppose  and  traduce 
him  than  friends  to  cheer  him  in  his  heartbreaking  work.  —Cc^j^^i',!*^ 
He  3vaj  neither  a  scholarly  man  nor  a  great  orator.    JThei  d-'^l^tv^  a'^^5 
three  qualities  which  supported  him  throughout  life  were'—  AcTfOf^i 
sympathy,  earnestness,  and  masterfulness.     A  hundred  men, 
more  gifted  physically  and  mentally,  might  have  attempted, 
indeed  have  attempted,  the  work  to  which  he  set  his  hand, 
and  failed  utterly  to  move  the  heart  of  the  world.     Two 
great  qualities  in  his  nature,  seldom  combined  in  one  per- 
sonality, intense  and  passionate  sympathy,   imperious  and 
resistless  masterfulness,  carried  him  through  even  when  his 


356     THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH    [chap.xxih] 

earnestness  was  doubted  on  every  hand.  He  really  felt 
the  agonies  of  the  poor  and  suffering,  he  really  felt  the 
horror  of  godlessness  and  debauchery,  he  really  felt  the 
death  of  torpor  and  indifference;  and  in  setting  out  to  re- 
lieve the  suffering,  to  convert  the  wicked,  and  to  raise  the 
spiritually  dead,  he  would  suffer  no  man  to  dictate  to  him 
the  words  he  should  use  or  allow  another  to  point  the  way 
in  which  he  should  go.  Despotic  by  temperament  and  by 
habit  and  by  conviction,  he  was  nevertheless  a  simple  man 
at  heart,  hallowed  by  a  love  which  sweetened  his  tumultu- 
ous mind,  and  held  to  his  course  by  a  dogmatic  faith  which 
was  the  very  breath  of  his  existence. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

FROM    THE    CHRISTIAN    MISSION    TOWARDS    THE 
SALVATION    ARMY 

I 874- I 878 

The  establishment  of  the  Salvation  Army  in  1878,  if  it 
opened  a  new  controversy  for  the  Churches  of  Christendom, 
closed  a  particularly  interesting  and  difficult  controversy 
which  had  in  some  measure  distracted  the  Christian  Mission 
for  the  last  four  years  of  its  existence. 

We  do  not  propose  to  follow  the  history  of  the  Salvation 
Army  in  any  detail,  or  to  trace  in  the  ancient  places  of 
orthodoxy  the  influence  of  this  bewildering  phenomenon 
in  the  religious  life  of  the  nineteenth  century.  But  it  is 
essential  to  the  history  of  William  Booth  that  record  be 
made  of  those  events  in  the  years  1874-1878  which  led  up 
to  the  founding  of  the  Salvation  Army,  and  in  particular 
to  that  controversy,  little  known  at  present,  which  put  an 
end  to  the  Christian  Mission  and  determined  the  character 
of  the  organization  which  succeeded  it. 

With  the  energy  and  courage  of  a  great  conviction, 
William  Booth  had  made  himself  master  of  the  Christian 
Mission.  An  attempt  by  a  few  timorous  individuals  to  con- 
trol the  growing  organization  of  this  Society,  and  to  set 
up  a  harassing  and  vacillating  committee  which  would  have 
held  the  reins  of  government,  had  been  overruled  by  the 
force  of  the  man  who  had  called  it  into  being.  He  got  rid 
of  these  meddling  people,  and  assumed  the  powers  of  an 
autocrat,  to  the  horror  of  the  fearful  and  to  the  great  satis- 
faction of  the  bold. 

But  that  he  did  not  arrive  at  this  position  without  oppo- 
sition may  be  seen  from  the  following  letter  —  for  which 
Dickens,  we  think,  would  have  offered  thanks  to  Heaven 
—  addressed  to  him  by  Mr.  Henry  Reed,  of  Tunbridge 
Wells.     This  letter  is  dated  15th  April,  1870: 

357 


358  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

My  dear  Brother, —  Your  note  confounded  me.  To  find 
you  owed  £500  upon  the  hall  was  sad  —  but  to  tell  me  you  are 
also  £500  more  in  debt,  to  this  I  know  not  what  to  say ;  surely 
there  must  be  some  mistake ;  still  your  letter  I  have  before 
me.  You  say,  "  Instead  of  having  £500  to  spare  I  am  £500 
in  debt,  and  have  not  wherewith  to  put  the  necessary  fittings 
into  the  place."  Again  and  again  you  have  assured  me  that 
nothing  would  induce  you  to  go  into  debt ;  you  engage  all 
helpers  by  the  week,  with  a  distinct  understanding  they  must 
go  unless  funds  come  in ;  that  all  your  places  you  took  on 
short  notices,  so  that  at  any  time  you  could  stop  without  debt 
...  on  no  other  terms  dare  I  have  anything  to  do  with  you  or 
the  Mission.  ...  I  have  boasted  that  you  have  adopted  the 
principle  of  no  debt,  not  one  penny.  I  am  confounded;  and 
the  knowledge  that  you  are  in  debt  after  your  solemn  word 
given  of  no  debt  is  such  a  violation  of  your  word  .  .  .  that 
it  will  have  a  tendency  to  destroy  confidence  .  .  .  but,  above 
all,  such  conduct  has  grieved  the  Good  Spirit,  and  is  grieving 
Him.  ...  I  do  not  wonder  now  at  the  knowledge  that  you 
were  ill.  O  the  dishonour  you  are  bringing  on  the  cause  of 
Christ  .  .  .  but  I  forbear,  my  soul  is  troubled. 

You  ask  what  can  I  advise ;  I  can  give  you  none,  I  can  only 
say  what  by  God's  Grace  I  would  do.  First :  I  would  call  to- 
gether all  paid  agents,  tell  them  my  position  and  give  them  the 
weekly  notice  agreed  upon,  and  send  them  away.  I  would 
then  give  notice  to  all  from  whom  I  had  taken  any  place,  large 
or  small.  If  all  you  have  in  the  world  were  sold  I  question 
if  you  could  pay  20s.  in  the  pound.  Therefore  it  is  not  honest 
to  render  yourself  Hable  for  places  under  any  pretence  of  God's 
causes.  "  He  does  not  require  robbery  for  burnt  offering." 
Then  I  should  put  my  own  house  into  the  hands  of  a  respect- 
able house  agent  for  sale,  taking  the  first  reasonable  offer.  I 
would  then  go  into  a  small  house  —  hundreds  of  clerks  have 
to  live  upon  £100  a  year,  thousands  of  respectable  artisans 
upon  30s.  a  week  —  thousands  are  in  Glory  who  have  made 
greater  sacrifices  than  living  upon  iioo  a  year,  for  the  Master's 
sake.  I  would  therefore  resolve  that  for  the  present  iioo  a 
year  should  cover  everything,  rent  and  schooling,  everything. 
Your  wife  and  daughters  must  keep  the  house  and  do  every- 
thing with  the  exception  of  washing,  which  I  do  not  think  she 
is  able  to  do.  .  .  .  house  would  be  small  and  would  require 
but  little  labour  to  keep  it  clean — cooking  would  be  only  for 
the  necessities  of  life.  Your  wife  would  have  to  give  up 
taking  halls  and  leaving  home  (I  never  saw  this  to  be  the 
path  of  duty)  ...  all  this  is  retrenchment  —  now,  then,  how 
are  the  debts  to  be  paid?  I  would  sell  the  soup  place,  which, 
with  coppers,  fittings  up,  lease,  etc.,  would  probably  realize  a 
good  sum ;  in  a  smaller  house  you  would  want  less  furniture, 


XXIV]        ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  ARMY  359 

I  would  sell  every  stick  I  could  do  without  —  then,  hoiiestJy 
acting,  I  would  above  all  look  to  God  —  I  would  begin  by  con- 
fessing my  sin  and  folly,  pleading  the  promise,  if  we  confess 
our  sins,  He  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive  us  our  sins  and 
to  cleanse  us  from  all  unrighteousness ;  but  it  is  no  use  con- 
fessing without  honestly  turning  from  it,  and  doing  all  in  my 
power  to  pay  every  man  his  own  and  to  undo  by  any  means  in 
my  power  the  evil  which  my  conduct  may  have  done. 

]\Iy  beloved  Brother — for  still  I  love  you  and  feel  a  deep 
interest  in  you  —  lay  all  that  I  have  said  before  God.  My 
great  fear  is  your  wife;  if  she  will  honestly  and  humbly  join 
you  and  encourage  you  to  do  what  is  right,  I  believe  you  will, 
for  you  are  much  inlluenced  by  her  —  but  for  her  to  give  up 
all  and  come  down  to  a  plain  loving  wife  and  mother  willing 
to  stop  at  home,  send  her  children  to  a  humble  day  school  — 
Airs.  Booth  nothing  and  her  family  nothing — I  know  this 
practically  will  indeed  be  hard  —  my  mother  came  much  lower 
with  a  family  of  little  ones ;  the  best  school  I  was  at  was,  I 
think,  20s.  the  year,  the  one  before  2d.  a  week.  She  worked 
and  with  a  little  sister  washed  and  laboured  and  brought  us 
up,  and  was  never  ashamed  of  it.  The  Lord  help  your  dear 
wife  to  do  likewise.  I  am  fully  persuaded  my  wife  would 
do  everything  I  am  asking  yours  to  do,  and  would  encourage 
me  to  do  all  I  am  asking  you  to  do.  ...  If  you  truly  repent 
and  do  what  is  right,  I  believe  God  will  deliver  you ;  if  not, 
you  will  probably  find  it  a  sin  unto  death.  Of  course  you  will 
call  together  the  trustees  for  the  Hall  and  place  everything 
before  them,  for  even  the  coppers  belong  to  the  Hall,  and 
therefore  should  not  be  sold  without  their  consent  .  .  .  and 
then  you  will  lay  before  the  Mission  Committee,  all,  all,  all, 
and  hear  what  both  parties  say.  Trustees  and  Committees, 
unless  a  reality,  are  a  delusion, —  you  act  without  consulting 
them  to  a  great  extent,  I  am  afraid.  ...  If  you  have  them, 
they  must  be  a  reality  for  the  future.  Shams  of  every  sort 
are  not  in  accordance  with  God's  Word.  Do  not  answer  this 
for  a  week,  read  it  over  with  prayer  again  and  again,  then  let 
your  wife  read  it. —  Yours  in  Christ, 

Henry  Reed. 

Unfortunately,  no  record  exists  of  William  Booth's 
repl}'-  to  this  remarkable  epistle.  Nothing  is  known,  more 
unfortunately  still,  of  what  Mrs.  Booth  said  when  this 
letter  was  read  to  her. 

But  we  know  that  William  Booth  did  not  take  the  advice 
of  the  plutocrat  in  Tunbridge  Wells,  who  was  a  kinder  man 
th.an  his  letter  would  suggest,  and  who  became  a  true  and 


36o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

generous  friend  in  after  years.  William  Booth  stuck  to 
Whitechapel ;  he  faced  his  difficulties ;  and  he  tightened  his 
masterful  hold  upon  the  Mission. 

Yet  there  were  moments  when  he  was  disposed,  so  greatly 
did  the  financial  burden  press  upon  him,  to  seek  the  pro- 
tection of  established  organizations,  or  a  committee  of 
wealthy  men.  In  August,  1872,  he  writes  to  Samuel 
Morley : 

In  conversation  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Paton,  with  whom  I  met 
most  casually,  I  mentioned  this  thought  in  answer  to  his  par- 
ticular and  interested  enquiries  as  to  our  progress,  saying  that 
sometimes  I  had  wondered  whether  it  would  be  possible  to 
tack  our  Mission,  like  a  little  boat,  on  to  some  existing  re- 
ligious denomination,  or  whether  a  few  Christian  gentlemen 
of  different  denominations  might  take  the  financial  responsi- 
bility of  the  movement.  ...  It  promises  me  little  but  a  life  of 
toil  and  anxiety.  Such  is  my  conviction  as  to  the  necessity  of 
some  such  movement,  and  such  is  my  conviction  that  this  is 
a  line  of  things  which,  if  worked  efficiently,  is  calculated  to 
accomplish  great,  blessed,  and  lasting  results,  that  I  am  willing 
not  only  to  accept,  but  welcome  with  gladness,  the  little  labour 
it  may  bring  to  me. 

And  in  the  same  year,  writing  to  his  wife  while  he  is 
away  from  home  after  a  troublesome  illness,  he  shows  how 
lonely  he  is,  and  how  he  longs  for  her  society : 

My  Dearest,  my  Darling,  my  own  Love, —  How  mysteri- 
ous the  tie  that  binds  us  together,  how  wonderful  the  union. 
How  lost  and  lonesome  I  am  without  you.  Life  loses  half, 
nay  all,  its  charm.  I  am  only  living  and  working  here  to  get 
better  to  return  to  you.  My  last  and  first  thoughts  are  given 
to  you.  Oh  let  us  try  and  cherish  and  keep  stronger  with 
a  living  glow  the  holy  flame  of  love  as  kindled  in  our  hearts 
for  each  other.  I  am  oppressed  with  the  thought  and  feeling 
of  my  unworthiness,  of  the  devotion  you  manifest  for  me. 

But,  in  spite  of  solitude  in  his  heart,  opposition  from 
the  world,  criticism  from  wealthy  friends,  and  the  tre- 
mendous burden  of  finance,  he  strove  with  might  and  with 
main  to  establish  the  Mission  on  a  sure  and  lasting  foun- 
dation. 

William  Booth  I  ad  now  reached  that  period  in  life  which 


XXIV]        ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  ARMY         361 

John  Morley  calls  the  second  crisis  —  the  crisis  which 
marks  "  the  resisting  quality,  the  strength,  the  purity,  the 
depth  of  the  native  character."  The  whole  future  of  his 
days  was  to  be  determined  by  the  work  which  he  now  held 
fast  in  his  hands.  What  was  to  be  the  history  of  this 
obscure  Mission  founded  in  the  waste  places  of  White- 
chapel?  Was  it  to  be  only  another  failure  of  religious 
realism  ?  Was  it  to  leave  misery  as  it  found  it,  and  sin  still 
deeply  entrenched  in  the  hearts  of  men?  Was  it  to  collect 
subscriptions,  publish  an  Annual  Report,  and  finally  disap- 
pear into  the  limbo  of  religious  enthusiasm?  The  answer 
made  by  William  Booth  to  these  questions  was  the  Ever- 
lasting Nay  of  one  profoundly  convinced  of  God's  presence 
in  his  soul.  He  determined  that  this  Mission  should  fight 
its  way  out  of  obscurity  and  reach  the  conscience  of  man- 
kind. He  was  never  of  a  stronger  will  or  a  nobler  purpose 
than  when  he  set  himself  to  make  this  Mission  a  means  of 
awakening  the  Church  to  the  hope  of  a  spiritual  victory. 
Everything  was  against  him  except  that  which  was  indiffer- 
ent to  him;  and  the  number  of  his  faithful  disciples  was 
few. 

The  powers  that  he  assumed  to  gain  this  end  are  set 
forth  in  the  following  emphatic  terms  under  the  heading 
of  "  General  Superintendent,"  in  an  old  volume  of  the 
Society,  called  the  Conference  Journal: 

I.  The  Mission  shall  be  under  'the  superintendence  of  the 
Rev.  William  Booth,  who  is  spoken  of  hereafter  as  the  Gen- 
eral Superintendent. 

n.  The  General  Superintendent  shall  possess  the  power  of 
confirming  or  setting  aside  the  decisions  and  resolutions  of  any 
of  the  Of^cial,  Society,  or  other  Meetings  held  throughout  the 
Mission,  which  in  his  judgment  may  be  in  any  way  prejudicial 
to  the  object  for  which  the  Mission  was  first  established. 

III.  The  General  Superintendent  shall,  when  present,  preside 
at  all  meetings  throughout  the  Mission,  unless  he  desire  other- 
wise ;  or,  in  his  absence,  he  may,  if  he  deem  it  necessary,  depute 
some  person  to  preside  in  his  place. 

IV.  The  said  William  Booth  shall  continue  to  be  for  the 
term  of  his  natural  life  the  General  Superintendent  of  the 
Christian  Mission,  unless  he  shall  resign  such  ofiice. 

V.  The  said  William  Booth,  and  every  General  Superin- 
tendent who  shall  succeed  him,  shall  have  power  to  appoint  his 


362  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

successor  to  the  office  of  General  Superintendent,  and  all  the 
rights,  powers,  and  authorities  of  the  office  shall  vest  in  the 
person  so  appointed  upon  the  decease  of  the  said  William 
Booth,  or  other  General  Superintendent  appointing  him,  or  at 
such  other  period  as  may  be  named  in  the  document  appoint- 
ing him. 

VL  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  every  General  Superintendent  to 
make  in  writing,  as  soon  as  conveniently  may  be,  after  his  ap- 
pointment, a  statement  as  to  his  successor  or  as  to  the  means 
which  are  to  be  taken  for  the  appointment  of  a  successor  at 
the  decease  of  the  General  Superintendent,  or  upon  his  ceasing 
to  perform  the  duties  of  the  office,  such  statement  to  be  signed 
by  the  General  Superintendent,  and  delivered  in  a  sealed  en- 
velope to  the  Solicitor  for  the  time  being  of  the  Christian  Mis- 
sion ;  but  such  statement  may  be  altered  at  will  by  the  General 
Superintendent  at  any  time  during  his  continuance  in  office 
upon  a  new  statement  being  signed  by  him,  and  delivered  as 
before  mentioned  to  such  Solicitor  as  aforesaid. 

These  powers,  we  must  be  careful  to  recognise,  were 
assumed  only  when  the  tentative  policy  of  the  Conference 
Committee  was  seen  to  be  inimical  to  the  advance  of  the 
Mission,  and  only  after  William  Booth  had  been  approached 
by  the  most  active  members  of  the  Mission  and  asked  to 
assume  them.  Among  those  who  approached  him  in  this 
way  was  the  late  George  Scott  Railton,  afterwards  a  very 
able  Commissioner  in  the  Salvation  Army.  It  was  pointed 
out  to  William  Booth  that  the  deputation  had  given  up 
everything  to  follow  him,  and  that  in  making  this  sacrifice 
of  their  worldly  interests  they  had  been  influenced  by  the 
conviction  that  he  was  a  man  specially  called  by  God  to 
revivify  the  life  of  the  Church;  certainly,  they  had  never 
thought  of  giving  their  lives  into  the  hands  of  a  committee 
whose  instincts  were  little  different  from  the  councils  and 
committees  of  other  religious  bodies. 

With  this  revolution  in  the  machinery  of  the  Mission 
a  fresh  impetus  was  given  to  its  work,  both  in  London  and 
the  provinces.  It  became,  one  may  say,  from  that  moment 
the  Salvation  Army.  Men  and  women  surrendered  their 
lives  to  the  inspiration  of  William  Booth,  went  wherever 
he  ordered  them  to  go,  did  whatsoever  he  bid  them  to  do, 
and  suffered  without  murmur  or  complaint  a  hundred  hard- 


xxrv]        ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  ARMY 


3^3 


ships  hardly  to  be  exceeded  at  the  most  distant  boundaries 
of  the  Foreign  Mission  field. 

The  aim  of  this  humble  Mission  which  aspired  so  greatly, 
is  expressed  in  the  commendable  brevity  which  was  one  of 
William  Booth's  characteristic  gifts: 

The  object  and  work  of  this  Mission  is  to  seek  the  con- 
version of  the  neglected  crowds  of  people  who  are  living  with- 
out God  and  without  hope,  and  to  gather  those  so  converted 
into  Christian  fellowship,  in  order  that  they  may  be  instructed 
in  Scriptural  truth,  trained  in  habits  of  holiness  and  useful- 
ness, and  watched  over  and  cared  for  in  their  religious  course. 

The  same  brevity  is  to  be  found  in  the  Articles  of  Faith; 
but  here,  even  to  the  most  inexperienced  theologian,  brev- 
ity must  seem  a  dangerous  convenience.  But  it  will  be 
borne  in  mind  by  all  generous  students  of  religion,  that  the 
man  who  here  expresses,  or  attempts  to  express,  his 
Christian  faith  in  terms  of  theology,  was  one  conscious  in 
a  supreme  and  a  very  acute  degree  of  God's  existence,  and 
of  the  frightful  suffering  and  havoc  wrought  by  sin.  He 
was  a  prophet  more  than  a  theologian : 

I.  We  believe  that  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Tes- 
taments were  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  that  they  only 
constitute  the  divine  rule  of  Christian  faith  and  practice. 

II.  We  believe  that  there  is  only  one  God  who  is  infinitely 
perfect,  the  Creator,  Preserver,  and  Governor  of  all  things. 

III.  We  believe  that  there  are  three  persons  in  the  God- 
head :  The  Father,  the  Son,  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  undivided  in 
essence,  co-equal  in  power  and  glory,  and  the  only  proper  ob- 
ject of  religious  worship. 

IV.  We  believe  that  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ  the  divine 
and  human  natures  are  united,  so  that  He  is  truly  and  properly 
God,  and  truly  and  properly  man. 

Y.  We  believe  that  our  first  parents  were  created  in  a  state 
of  infancy,^  but  by  their  disobedience  they  lost  their  purity  and 
happiness ;  and  that,  in  consequence  of  their  fall,  all  men  have 
become  sinners,  totally  depraved,  and  as  such  are  justly  ex- 
posed to  the  wrath  of  God. 

VI.  We  believe  that  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  has  by  His  suf- 
fering and  death  made  an  atonement  for  the  whole  world,  so 
that  whosoever  will  may  be  saved. 

^  A  clerical  error.  The  word  is  evidently  a  mis-writing  for  inno- 
cencv. 


CoO 


364  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

VII.  We  believe  that  repentance  towards  God,  faith  in  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  regeneration  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  are 
necessary  to  salvation. 

VIII.  We  believe  that  we  are  justified  by  grace  through 
faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  he  that  believeth  hath 
the  witness  in  himself. 

IX.  We  believe  that  it  is  the  privilege  of  all  believers  to  be 
"  wholly  sanctified,"  and  that  "  their  whole  spirit  and  soul  and 
body  "  may  "  be  preserved  blameless  unto  the  coming  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ." — (i  Thess.  v.  22,.) 

X.  We  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul ;  in  the  resur- 
rection of  the  body;  in  the  general  judgment  at  the  end  of  the 
world ;  in  the  eternal  happiness  of  the  righteous ;  and  in  the 
endless  punishment  of  the  wicked. 

Such  at  the  time  was  the  faith  of  William  Booth,  and 
this  faith  he  impressed  upon  the  Christian  Mission  with  all 
the  force  and  power  of  his  masterful  character.  None 
who  followed  him  doubted  for  a  single  moment  that  human 
life  had  been  an  act  of  special  creation,  that  man  in  his 
origin  was  innocent  and  perfect,  that  Satan  had  cunningly 
entrapped  the  human  race  into  disobedience  to  God,  and 
that  every  child  born  into  the  difficulties  of  human  existence 
was,  in  consequence  of  that  original  fall,  liable  to  become  a 
sinner  totally  depraved,  and  to  come  under  the  wrath  of 
the  Creator.  This  was  the  faith  of  the  Christian  Mission. 
It  was  a  faith  which  inspired  great  heroism  and  a  profound 
loving-kindness. 

In  the  controversy  to  which  we  have  referred  —  the 
controversy  which  had  much  to  do  with  the  transformation 
of  the  Christian  Mission  into  the  Salvation  Army  —  we 
have  more  than  a  good  example  of  the  difficulties  which  now 
and  then  presented  themselves  to  William  Booth;  we  have 
a  striking  illustration  of  the  working  of  his  mind. 

It  began  to  be  seen  early  in  the  seventies  that  conversion 
was  not  an  end,  but  a  beginning.  To  convert  a  thief,  a 
drunkard,  a  swindler,  a  footpad,  an  atheist,  was  only  a 
first  step  to  making  these  poor  sinners  the  children  of  light. 
A  thief  might  give  up  stealing  and  a  drunkard  abandon 
alcohol,  yet  remain  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  only  respect- 
able and  law-abiding,  or,  at  best,  only  formal  disciples  of 
that  mystical  religion  which  obviously  has  Hqlines§_^Qru.ts 
supreme  end. 


XXIV]        ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  ARMY         365 

But  the  numbers  of  evil  people  were  legion;  the  area 
covered  by  crime,  poverty,  and  indifference,  enormous. 
What  should  be  done  ?  Was  the  Christian  Mission  to  seek 
the  perfecting  of  a  few,  or  the  awakening  of  a  multitude? 
Was  it  to  go  within  doors  and  pray  itself  into  an  exquisite 
small  holiness,  or  to  fling  itself  far  and  wide  upon  the 
extended  front  of  evil,  and  endeavour  to  arouse  the  whole 
world  to  the  urgency  of  a  decision  for  God? 

Some  were  for  this  course,  others  for  that ;  the  Mission, 
in  fact,  was  all  but  threatened  by  a  schism.  Catherine 
Booth,  whom  some  people  regard  as  the  real  founder  of 
the  Salvation  Army,  while  influenced  by  a  remarkable  pre- 
monition of  the  coming  importance  of  the  movement,  was 
decidedly  in  favour  of  an  intense  cultivation  towards 
personal  holiness.  There  is  no  question  about  that.  Wil- 
liam Booth  oscillated  between  two  opinions.  As  late  as 
August,  1876,  he  was  greatly  troubled  by  this  matter,  as  an 
interesting  letter  written  during  illness  to  his  son  Bramwell, 
then  resting  in  Scotland  after  a  breakdown  in  health,  makes 
fairly  manifest.  We  quote  this  long  letter  almost  in  full 
because  of  its  intrinsic  interest;  the  reference  to  Holiness 
appears  only  towards  the  end : 

August  27,  '76. 

My  dear  Boy  —  Of  the  abounding  mercy  of  God  I  am  per- 
mitted to  commence  writing  my  thoughts  to  those  at  a  distance 
whom  I  love,  and  find  it  a  joy  as  well  as  a  duty  to  counsel  and 
commune  with ;  and  first,  before  all  others,  my  heart  turns  to 
you.  I  need  not  tell  you  how  almost  constantly  you  have  been 
in  my  thoughts,  and  how  anxiously  I  have  desired  that  noth- 
ing—  no  evil  tidings  about  me  or  aught  else  should  interfere 
with  your  comfort  or  mar  the  good  effects  of  your  sojourn  in 
the  North.  .  .  .^ 

Now  for  yourself,  and  I  cannot  write  very  fully.  I  must 
give  you  the  results  of  my  thinking  about  you. 

Your  futxtre  —  i.e.,  your  life  work.  How  can  I  divine  this? 
You  ought  to  have  convictions  yourself.  One  thing  alone  I 
insist  on  —  Be  something — be  master  of  one  branch  of  labour. 
This  seems  to  me  a  necessity,  i.e.,  if  you  have  health  for  it  — 
if  not — why,  then,  get  on  as  well  as  you  can.  You  will  have 
God's  providence  to  fall  back  upon,  which  makes  a  way  and  a 

^  Here  follows  an  account  of  his  severe  illness,  and  the  illness  of 
other  members  of  the  family.  He  says  of  Catherine  Booth,  "  She 
nursed  me  with  all  her  might,  and,  as  a  result,  broke  down." 


366  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

provision  for  the  infirm  —  for  those  who  have  no  strength  to 
help  themselves.  That  is,  for  example,  if  you  take  up  a 
clerk's  work,  be  a  clerk,  as  fully  qualified  as  your  opportunities 
will  allow.  Be  able  to  zvrite,  keep  books,  etc.  If  a  preacher, 
then  be  a  preacher. 

My  own  and  a  growing  conviction  is  that  God  wants  you  to 
assist  me  in  directing  and  governing  this  Mission,  and  at  my 
death,  if  it  should  anticipate  yours,  to  take  my  place.  With 
my  present  feelings  /  should  certainly  name  you  to  take  my 
place  in  the  event  of  my  decease.  True,  at  present,  your  youth 
would  be  very  much  against  you  with  some  of  the  men,  but 
you  would  have  Mamma  to  counsel  you  and  she  would  have 
much  weight.  But  my  feeling  is  that  God  will  spare  me  for 
some  time  to  come  —  and  every  year  now  will  tell  in  your 
favour. 

Well  then  —  what  ought  you  to  do  with  this  possible  future f 
Methinks  devote  all  your  energies  to  preparation  for  it.  Do 
you  say  —  this  may  be  a  long  way  off  ?  True,  but  there  is  the 
work  already  to  be  done  of  a  subordinate  Overseer  during  my 
life,  which  will  be  the  necessary  preparation  for  the  other. 
This  can  be  entered  upon  at  once  —  this  it  may  be  said  you 
have  commenced  already,  and  have  obtained  more  influence  of 
the  kind  needed  than  any  one  else  in  the  concern.  You  may 
say  —  you  do  not  see  your  qualifications  and  cannot  accept 
my  conviction.  I  hardly  see  how  you  can  get  out  of  it,  be- 
cause you  see  you  are  not,  and  will  not,  be  left  to  judge  for 
yourself  in  this  matter.  If  I  see  no  one  else  better  qualified 
to  take  my  place,  /  am  driven  back  upon  you,  and  if  I  name 
you,  you  will  have  no  alternative  but  to  accept  my  nomination 
whatever  your  own  opinion  may  be  as  to  your  unfitness.  But 
you  will  say  —  how  does  this  accord  with  my  first  remark  that 
"  I  ought  to  have  convictions  of  my  own  and  make  my  own 
choice  " —  perfectly,  because  whatever  you  choose  will  only 
help  your  qualification,  seeing  that  the  definite  application  to 
any  branch  of  work  will  give  your  mind  that  power  of  sys- 
tematic application  zvhich  you  need. 

Now  as  to  the  present  —  I  think  you  should  lay  down  and 
act  upon  some  plans  that  would : 


1.  Improve  your  mind. 

2.  Increase  your  intelligence. 

3.  Improve  your  gifts. 

4.  Add  to  your  education. 


To  be  able  to  read  a  Latin  sentence  or  your  Greek  Testament 
I  think  desirable,  although  not  necessary  —  and  all  this  may 
be  done  by  moderate,  and,  to  you,  an  easy  amount  of  reading 
and  study. 


XXIV]        ESTABLISH^^IENT  OF  THE  ARMY         367 

But  what  are  you  to  do  now? 

1.  Either  go  to  College  —  to  which  I  should  not  absolutely 
object. 

2.  Or,  what  I  should  prefer,  if  you  have  strength  of  purpose 
to  carry  it  out :  Do  a  modified  amount  of  Mission  work  and  a 
modified  course  of  study  at  the  same  time.  You  are  at  present 
comparatively  ignorant  of  anything  except  "  politics,"  and 
herein  I  am  afraid  you  are  not  very  profound!  Now  you 
must  have  among  other  things  a  knowledge  of  systematic  the- 
ology. You  have  felt  lately  your  need  here,  and  as  a  public 
man,  probably  a  very  public  man,  to  hold  your  own  with  the 
preachers  and  the  public  you  must  have  information  and  skill 
in  controversial  theology.  There  need  be  no  excuse  here. 
You  have  a  mind  for  it  —  and  you  only  need  (i)  To  know 
your  Bible;  (2)  A  course  of  reading.  But  I  forbear  —  you 
will  see  what  I  mean. 

To  go  to  College  —  the  difficulty  would  arise  where?  I 
know  not.  All  except  the  Methodist  Institutions  are  Cal- 
vinistic  —  cold-blooded  —  and_  while  iniproving  the  mind,  do, 
I  ^earj_ injure  the  heart.  Then  the  effect  of  my  son  being  at 
College  would  not  be  good,  and  moreover  I  am  sure  that  there 
is  no  necessity,  if  you  could  set  yourself  and  adhere  to  a  mod- 
erate round  of  reading  and  study.  But  what  meanwhile? 
Are  you  to  resume  your  place  at  the  office?  By  no  means. 
You  are  not  adapted  for  that  and  otJier  tilings  —  and  you 
are  too  good  for  that  alone.  That  we  will  have  clerks  to  see 
to,  with  self  and  G.  S.  R.^  not  by  any  means  shutting  you  out 
when  in  London  and  I  am  away.  But  I  propose  that  you  join 
me  in  taking  care  of  the  actual  work  of  the  Mission,  by  visit- 
ing in  turn  the  different  stations  and  remaining  occasionally  a 
little  time  in  each  place.  Of  the  usefulness,  nay,  absolute 
necessity,  of  such  a  visitation  I  am  quite  satisfied  —  and  I  am 
sure  I  cannot  do  it  effectually  alone  —  anyway,  every  year  it 
will  grow  more  and  more  difficult  for  me  to  compass. 

I  cannot  now  present  you  with  arguments.  It  seems  to  me 
a  work  for  which  you  are  adapted  by  the  same  providence  that 
has  opened  your  way  to  it.  Only  I  can  only  consent  to  it  on 
the  understanding  that  you  will  use  every  faculty  and  oppor- 
tunity given  to  make  yourself  a  preacher,  and  to  qualify  your- 
self for  filling  so  public  and  eminently  useful  a  position  as  that 
to  w^hich  God  and  your  circumstances  alike  seem  to  call  you. 
Of  course  you  will  see  that  this  would  not  involve  you  in  any 
great  amount  of  anxiety  at  first  nor  of  responsibility.  .  .  . 

We  must  pray  a  great  deal  about  everything.  I  have  been 
reading  Tyerman's  Wesley  in  my  illness  and  have,  by  compar- 
ing his  (Wesley's)  experience  with  my  own.  I  think,  derived 
some  important  lessons.     One  is  that,  under  God,  Wesley  made 

iG.  S.  Railton. 


368  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Methodism  not  [only]  by  converting,  sinners, .  but  by  making 
well  instructed  saints.  We  must  follow  in  his  track,  ar  we 
are  a  rope  of  sand.  He  laid  as  much  stress  on  visiting  the 
members  privately,  and  in  classes,  as  on  preaching.  Let  us 
profit  by  the  experience  of  those  who  have  trod  similar  paths 
before  us.     I  wish  you  had  the  books. 

I  hope  you  will  read  this  carefully.  It  has  cost  me  some 
trouble  to  sit  to  it  and  taken  me  all  day,  that  is  with  intervals 
of  rest.  So  do  ponder  it  well.  I  don't  want  you  to  answer 
it  except  in  bulk. 

Give  my  kindest  regards  to  dear  Mr.  McKenzie.  He  has 
proved  himself  to  be  a  brother  indeed.  I  am  glad  you  are  not 
shaken  in  your  opinions  of  the  fulness  and  freeness  of  God's 
love.^     Wesley's  Life  will  greatly  confirm  you. 

Look  directly  to  God  for  light  and  guidance.  Try  and 
please  Him  in  everything. 

Here  it  will  be  seen  that  William  Booth  was  at  this  time 
strongly  inclining  towards  Holiness,  was  thinking  rather 
about  the  making  of  saints  than  the  conversion  of  sinners, 
and,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  even  when  he  definitely  de- 
cided, in  1878,  for  a  world-wide  battle  in  the  name  of  Con- 
version, carrying  Catherine  Booth  and  most  of  the  Mission 
with  him,  how  he  remained,  as  he  always  did  to  the  end  of 
his  days,  mindful  of  the  need  for  Holiness  — "  the  Higher 
Up  Religion  "  as  he  afterwards  called  this  experience.  It 
is  important  to  the  student  of  William  Booth's  life  that  he 
should  under-stand  the  character  of  the  Christian  Mission, 
for  that  character  is  in  large  measure  the  character  of 
William  Booth  himself,  and  at  the  second  crisis  of  life,  the 
middle  years. 

At  the  outset  we  see  that  this  Christian  Mission  had  most 
of  the  main  characteristics  of  the  Salvation  Army,  that  it 
did  not  despise  any  means  for  awakening  the  conscience  of 
mankind,  and  that  while  it  was  in  dead  earnest  it  was  nev- 
ertheless able  to  express  its  anxiety  for  the  souls  of  men  in 
a  spirit  of  large  cheerfulness  and  broad  humour.  The 
great  thing  before  it  was  to  awaken  the  sleeper.  This  was 
the  first  step.  The  sleeper  slept  soundly.  A  drum  banged 
at  his  door,  even  a  trumpet  blown  at  his  ear  could  not  rouse 
him  from  his  slumber.     But  until  he  was  roused,  until  he 

1  Bramwell  Booth  had  been  meeting  in  the  north  of  Scotland  with 
many  influences  of  strong  Calvinistic  tendency: 


XXIV]        ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  ARMY         369 

woke  and  saw  the  sky  of  heaven  and  the  desolations  of  sin, 
until  he  came  out  of  the  drugged  sleep  of  spiritual  apathy, 
one  might  as  well  preach  to  a  stone.  P'irst,  then,  the 
sleeper  must  be  awakened. 

Therefore  we  find  the  Mission  adopting  the  traditional 
methods  of  Petticoat  Lane  to  attract  the  spiritual  attention 
of  Whitechapel.  Rewards  are  offered  for  '*  Lost  Jewels," 
appeals  made  to  help  the  Master  to  recover  His  "  Lost 
Property,"  and  invitations  extended  to  "  A  Grand  Banquet  " 
in  the  Palace  of  God.  But  while  these  methods  are  em- 
ployed—  methods  of  an  essentially  English  character  and 
old  as  our  English  hills,  the  spirit  of  the  missioners  is 
deeply  and  grimly  serious. 

No  one  shall  be  allowed  to  hold  any  ofiFice  in  the  Mission  who 
is  not  a  total  abstainer  from  intoxicating  liquors,  tobacco,  and 
snuff,  except  in  cases  of  absolute  sickness. 

No  person  shall  be  received  or  continued  as  a  member  who 
shall  keep  a  public-house  or  brewery,  or  be  engaged  in  the  de- 
moralising traffic  or  sale  of  intoxicating  drinks;  or  who  shall 
frequent  any  public-house  or  dram-shop  except  on  business ; 
or  who  shall  sell  obscene  books  or  pictures,  fortune-telling 
books,  or  ballads,  or  any  other  publication  of  irreligious  tend- 
ency, or  who  shall  exhibit  bills  for  theatres,  concerts,  or  balls, 
in  their  windows  or  premises. 

Any  members  guilty,  etc.  ...  of  wearing  fashionable  and 
unbecoming  dress  .  .  .  shall  be — ist  offence,  reproved;  2nd, 
suspended;  3rd,  expelled. 

Differences  of  Doctrine. 

A  person  shall  not  necessarily  be  disqualified  for  member- 
ship by  differing  with  us  on  minor  questions  of  doctrine,  un- 
less such  difference,  in  the  judgment  of  the  elders'  meeting,  is 
likely  to  hinder  the  usefulness  and  mar  the  peace  of  the 
Society. 

Member's  Care  of  Each  Other. 

All  our  members  shall  be  especially  careful  of  each  other's 
reputation,  watch  lovingly  over  each  other's  welfare,  and  pro- 
mote it 'as  far  as  it  lies  in  their  power:  — 

1.  By  praying  daily  for  each  other. 

2.  By  sympathy  and  practical  help  in  the  time  of  poverty, 
affliction,  bereavement,  or  any  other  kind  of  tribulation. 

3.  By  never  allowing  evil  to  be  spoken  of  them  unrebuked, 
by  any  one  in  their  absence.  ^y 


370  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Classes. 

Meet  weekly,  opening  and  closing  with  singing  and  prayer. 
Leader  relates  his  experiences  and  questions  each  member  as 
to  his,  gives  advice.  Each  member  not  to  pray  more  than  a 
minute  at  a  time,  so  that  all  may  pray.  Each  leader  to  avoid  a 
"  lifeless,  formal  manner  "  in  leading  class ;  must  train  mem- 
bers to  give  brief,  sincere  statement  of  experience  during 
week.     Prayers  to  be  brief,  singing  short  and  lively. 

We  find,  too,  in  the  instructions  regarding  Open- Air  Serv- 
ices, the  same  spirit  of  aggression  tempered  by  a  politic 
meekness  w^hich  animated  the  startling  street-work  of  the 
Salvation  Army: 

Open- Air  Services. 

All  public  services  to  be  preceded  by  one  or  more  in  the  open 
air,  to  be  arranged  by  Supt.  of  Elders'  meeting,  preachers 
to  be  pious  men  connected  with  us  or  some  other  Christian 
denomination.     Following  rules  to  be  observed : 

1.  Begin  punctually  at  the  time  marked  on  the  plan.  If 
there  is  no  one  present  to  help  you  to  sing,  commence  by  read- 
ing a  few  verses  of  Scripture,  praying  or  speaking. 

2.  Let  all  exercises  be  short  and  lively.  It  is  better  to  speak 
several  times,  with  a  little  singing  and  prayer  between,  sup- 
posing there  are  none  present  to  help,  than  to  speak  a  long 
time,  unless  specially  led  to  do  so  by  the  Spirit. 

3.  Avoid  all  controversial  subjects.  Never  mention  de- 
preciatingly any  other  religious  body.  Do  not  rail  at  papists, 
infidels,  publicans,  or  any  other  special  class  of  sinners,  or  any 
peculiar  form  of  error,  but  deal  with  men  as  sinners  in  danger 
every  moment  of  the  damnation  of  Hell,  and  to  whom  Christ 
who  died  for  them  has  sent  you  to  ofifer  a  present,  free,  _and 
full  Salvation. 

4.  If  you  are  interrupted,  answer  meekly  and  kindly  or  not 
/,      iat  all.     This  will  disarm  opposition ;  whereas  if  you  say  some 

Y     (sharp  and  bitter  thing,  although  it  may  turn  the  laugh  against 
'        I  your  opponent,  it  will  embitter  him  against  you,  and,  what  is 
'  of  greater  importance  still,  against  the  truths  you  are  there  to 
publish. 

5.  If  the  police  interfere  comply  with  their  requirements. 
If  these  requirements  are  unjust  appeal  to  their  superiors. 

6.  In  selecting  a  stand  always  avoid  those  spots  where  you 
will  be  likely  to  cause  any  obstruction  to  the  thoroughfare. 

7.  At  the  close  of  your  service,  if  possible  go  in  procession 
to  the  hall.     In  doing  so  select  a  tune  and  hymn  that  is  well 


XXIV]        ESTABLISHMENT  OF  THE  ARMY         371 

known.  You  had  better  not  sing  at  all  than  sing  so  as  to 
render  your  effort  ridiculous.  The  time  in  singing  should 
be  rather  slower  than  ordinary.  Singing  in  procession  is  not 
calculated  to  be  useful  under  all  circumstances.  In  some  re- 
spectable neighbourhoods  a  procession  without  singing  suc- 
ceeds the  best.     Friends  must  act  with  judgment. 

8.  Be  due  to  reach  the  hall  five  minutes  before  indoor  service 
commences. 

9.  The  conductor  of  the  outdoor  services  shall  make  the 
most  of  the  force  at  his  disposal,  selecting  those  best  adapted 
for  speaking,  praying,  etc. 

10.  Every  speaker  should  carefully  prepare  for  open-air 
services  and  not  depend  upon  what  he  might  be  able  to  say  at 
the  moment. 

Prayer  Meetings. 

One  or  more  to  be  held  weekly  at  every  station,  after  week- 
night  preaching  services  where  convenient,  and  after  every 
Sabbath  evening  preaching  except  when  the  Sacrament  be 
administered. 

The  praying  should  be  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  all  pres- 
ent, but  all  should  refrain  as  much  as  possible  from  praying  in 
a  loud,  screaming  voice,  as  it  distresses  the  hearers  and  un- 
necessarily exhausts  the  person  praying. 

Responses  are  good  when  natural  and  made  at  the  close  of 
the  separate  requests  of  the  person  leading  in  prayer,  but  when 
thrown  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  or  made  in  a  loud  or  bois- 
terous manner  they  divert  the  mind  of  the  person  praying  and 
do  more  harm  than  good  to  others.  In  this  as  in  other  mat- 
ters persons  should  take  heed  of  God's  Word  and  exercise 
common  sense,  restraining  themselves  from  all  that  is  ex- 
travagant or  likely  to  bring  the  Word  of  God  into  contempt 
with  those  who  are  out  of  sympathy  with  it. 

A  meeting  should  never  be  kept  late  unless  absolutely  nec- 
essary, and  then  it  should  be  closed  formally  at  a  suitable  hour, 
say  10  o'clock,  and  let  all  the  young  people  be  urged  to  retire. 
Then  the  meeting  can  be  recommenced  when  necessary ;  but  as 
a  rule  late  meetings  are  not  expedient,  they  wear  out  the  la- 
bourers, interfere  with  family  and  closet  duties,  and  create 
dissatisfaction  and  unpleasantness  at  home. 

At  the  close  of  these  meetings  and  other  services  all  should 
retire  thoughtfully  and  at  once;  talking  by  the  doors  on  trivial 
and  unimportant  subjects  and  all  light  and  trifling  conduct 
shall  not  be  allowed,  being  calculated  to  grieve  the  Holy  Spirit 
and  to  destroy  the  good  that  may  have  been  received.  The 
Stewards  or  the  persons  in  charge  of  the  station  shall  be  re- 
sponsible for  the  carrying  out  of  this  rule. 

In  dealing  with  tlie  anxious  let  no  one  be  urged  to  go  for- 
ward to  the  penitent-form  who  is  not  deeply  convinced  of  sin 


2,y2     THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap.xxiv] 


and  thoroughly  in  earnest  for  Salvation.  The  more  thor- 
oughly persons  are  awakened  and  broken  down  before  God  the 
more  readily  will  they  exercise  faith  in  Christ  and  enter  into 
rest,  and  the  more  stable  will  they  become  afterwards. 

One  sees  from  these  extracts  that  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  Mission  was  marked  by  the  cardinal  character- 
istics of  William  Booth.  It  called  for  a  real  self-denial,  but 
counselled  reasonable  care  of  oneself.  It  preached  the  most 
arresting  form  of  the  Christian  Gospel,  but  prescribed  an 
extreme  tenderness  with  the  broken-hearted.  It  denounced 
sin  with  an  energy  that  was  almost  violence,  but  sought  the 
sinner  with  a  loving-kindness  that  was  entirely  beautiful. 

William  Booth  believed  that  if  he  could  once  rouse  a 
torpid  world  to  seize  the  idea  of  religion  as  the  soul's  en- 
franchisement from  the  sufiferings  wrought  by  sin,  Christi- 
anity would  begin  its  final  march  to  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  It  was  torpor  far  more  than  sin  that  drove  him  to 
a  propaganda  which  startled  the  parlours  of  respectability 
and  amused  the  composed  thinkers  in  loftier  places.  His 
faith  in  the  power  of  Christ  to  overcome  sin  was  absolute. 
He  felt  that  his  work  lay  in  breaking  down  the  barriers  of 
spiritual  torpor  so  that  the  power  of  Christ  might  be  free 
to  act. 


\ 


CHAPTER  XXV 

WHICH  GIVES  SOME  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  HAPPINESS  AND 
EXCITEMENT  OF  THE  MISSION  AND  DESCRIPTIONS  OF 
"  HOLINESS    MEETINGS  " 

1 877-1 878 

To  the  Conference  of  the  Christian  Mission  in  1877 
William  Booth  not  only  announced  his  dictatorship,  but  em- 
ployed in  his  Opening  Address  phrases  and  metaphors  which 
reveal  a  subconscious  movement  on  his  part  towards  a  mili- 
tary discipline. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  Christian  Mission  had 
now  extended  its  influence  beyond  London.  Mrs.  Booth, 
addressing  large  audiences  all  over  the  country,  set  up 
wherever  it  was  feasible  a  "  station  "of  the  Christian  Mis- 
sion. Evangelists  were  sent  to  these  places,  an  organiza- 
tion under  the  jurisdiction  of  London  Headquarters  was 
set  in  motion,  and  the  followers  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth 
all  over  the  country  were  kept  in  touch  with  the  general 
movement  by  means  of  a  periodical  known  as  The  Christian 
Mission  Magazine. 

Later  in  the  present  chapter  we  shall  refer  to  the  opposi- 
tion of  the  Churches  to  this  energetic  attempt  of  the  Booths 
tflL_.hr.eak -through  formalism  and  apathy;  but  it  must  be 
told  here  that  one  of  the  taunts  constantly  levelled  at 
William  Booth  during  these  years  was  the  unpleasant  charge 
that  he  "lived  upon  his  wife's  petticoats."  I  cannot  find 
in  his  papers  any  reference  to  this  gibe,  but  Bramwell  Booth 
remembers  how  sharply  his  father  suffered  from  this  par- 
ticular accusation.  It  was  not  true;  it  was  venomously 
conceived,  and  it  had  for  its  evil  object  the  destruction  of 
the  Christian  Mission;  but  there  was  just  so  much  truth  in 
the  calumny  as  to  wound  the  heart  of  the  man  at  whom  it 
was  aimed.  Mrs.  Booth  at  this  time  was  "  missioning  "  in 
various  parts  of  London ;  William  Booth  was  mainly  in  the 
shadows  of  East  London  working  like  a  Trojan.     Invita- 

2,73 


374  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

tions  for  Mrs.  Booth  to  preach  were  received  from  many 
quarters;  the  novelty  of  a  preaching  woman  attracted  con- 
siderable attention ;  crowds  flocked  to  hear  her ;  fashionable 
ladies  entreated  her  to  hold  drawing-room  meetings  in  their 
houses.  It  is  possible  to  say  that  nine  people  out  of  ten 
who  knew  the  name  of  Catherine  Booth  had  never  heard  of 
William  Booth's  work  in  Whitechapel. 
\  But  while  Mrs.  Booth  was  preaching  in  the  country,  and 
addressing  remarkable  audiences  in  the  more  fashionable 
quarters  of  London,  William  Booth  was  preaching  and 
praying  for  the  most  part  in  Whitechapel,  perfecting  the 
organization  he  had  brought  into  existence,  and  shaping  the 
characters  of  men  and  women  who  were  to  become  the  first 
disciples  of  a  very  earnest  advance  in  personal  religion.  If 
he  sufifered  from  these  taunts,  they  did  not  draw  from  him, 
so  far  as  I  can  discover,  a  single  reply.  He  allowed  the 
ministers  of  dissenting  Churches  to  believe  that  he  lived  in 
idleness  while  his  wife  went  to  and  fro  collecting  guineas 
for  the  domestic  expenses  of  his  home.  He  was  twice  very 
ill,  so  ill  during  1876  that  his  life  was  despaired  of,  and  on 
several  other  occasions  he  was  obliged  to  leave  London  for 
spells  of  rest  in  the  country;  but  he  never  defended  him- 
self, never  argued  or  remonstrated  with  his  accusers,  and 
only  when  the  time  was  ripe  did  he  take  the  hazardous  step 
which  made  him  absolute  master  of  the  Christian  Mission, 
and  begin  that  extraordinary  work  which  showed  his  real 
power. 

What  must  strike  every  one  who  reads  the  history  of 
this  man  is,  above  all  other  things,  the  quality  of  his  self- 
security,  his  unflinching  and  unchanging  honesty.  That 
he  should  ever  have  been  arraigned,  and  by  ministers  of 
religion,  bitterly  and  mockingly,  as  a  self-seeking  hypocrite, 
as  one  who  lived  upon  his  wife,  not  only  astonishes  the 
writer  of  this  book,  but  reveals  to  him  a  condition  in  the 
Churches  of  that  time  which  wholly  justifies  the  most  ex- 
traordinary and  bizarre  of  all  William  Booth's  dispositions 
to  make  men  honestly  and  powerfully  conscious  of  God. 

In  the  momentous  Address  of  1877  this  ringing  honesty, 
intense  reality,  and  clear-headed  thinking  of  William  Booth 
are  visible  to  every  unprejudiced  eye.     We  see  him  risen 


XXV]  "HOLINESS  MEETINGS"  375 

from  sickness,  bent  by  troubles,  and  assailed  on  every  hand 
by  sectarian  hatreds,  taking  at  last  a  sovran  command  of 
the  Christian  Mission,  and  making  his  plans  for  a  struggle 
which  he  must  have  thought  would  last  to  his  life's  end. 

I  have  looked  forward  to  the  present  Conference  with  un- 
usual interest,  because  we  have  to  a  great  extent  abandoned 
the  plans  of   previous  gatherings.     Much   dissatisfaction  has 
been  felt,  and  in  many  instances  expressed,  at  the  controversial 
aspect  they  assumed,   so  large  a  portion  of  time  being  con- 
sumed in  discussion  on  comparatively  trifling  matters,  while 
the  mightier  and  practical  questions,  which  intimately  concern 
the  work  of  God  and  the  souls  of  our  people,  were  left  par- 
tially neglected.     It  became  evident  to  me  that  we  were  drift- 
ing in  a  wrong  direction.     I   confess  I   have  been  much  to 
blame  in  this  matter.     Under  the  idea  that  teaching  my  breth- 
ren management  and  law-making  would  increase  their  sense  of 
responsibility  and  unite  us  more  fully  together,  I  launched  the 
Conference  on  a  sea  of  legislation  which  all  came  to  nothing. 
It  was  no  help  to  me  and  it  came  to  nothing  with  others.     If 
anything  was  done  that  did  not  satisfy  any  one,  whether  evan- 
gelists or  societies,  they  invariably  blamed  me  and  insisted  on 
the  exercise  of  my  power  to  alter  it.     And  yet  here  we  were, 
with   new   men   coming   in   thick   and   fast,   leaving  the   most 
essential   principles   and  practices   to  be   wrangled   about  and 
decided  by  mere  majorities. 

Seeing  all  this  we  asked,  What  shall  we  do?  There  seemed 
only  one  course  —  to  return  to  the  practice  of  our  earliest 
gatherings.  Most  of  you  were  present  at  the  Conference 
lield  in  January,  when  I  frankly  and  fully  expressed  the  feel- 
ing of  my  heart  and  my  intentions  as  to  the  future,  and  my  ex- 
planations seemed  to  be  as  frankly  and  cordially  received.  I 
recalled  the  fact  that  at  the  first  I  had  associated  brethren  with 
myself  upon  the  distinct  understanding  that  they  should  labour 
under  my  superintendence.  This  was  the  full  understanding. 
No  one  asked  then,  as  no  one  asks  now,  or  expects  anything 
else  than  this  —  each  man  to  manage  his  station  according  to 
our  wishes,  and  fall  back  upon  us  for  counsel  and  direction  as 
may  be  needed.  All  who  come  into  the  work  now  understand 
this.  They  come  to  me  and  say,  "  Let  me  work,"  with  the 
fullest  understanding  that  I  should  direct  them.  And  in  this 
understanding,  whicli  is  thus  both  "  Ancient  and  Modern,"  we 
shall  work  in  the  future. 

But  it  will  be  asked,  perhaps,  what  then  is  the  advantage  of 
a  Conference?  i\Iuch,  I  answer,  every  way.  What  is  the 
good  of  a  council  of  war?  The  commander  in  chief  calls  the 
principal  officers  around  him  to  receive  information  and  coun- 


376  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

sel  from  all.  Each  brings  his  facts  and  expresses  his  judg- 
ment as  to  what  is  necessary  and  important  to  do,  and  then  in 
view  of  all  this  he  resolves  upon  a  programme  of  operation. 
This  is  our  Council  of  War.  We  are  here  to  consider  prac- 
tical questions  and  how  we  can  best  deal  with  them :  to  receive 
reinforcements  and  Testation  our  Army ;  and,  above  all,  we  are 
here  to  help  each  other's  souls,  to  cry  together  to  the  Living 
God  for  the  rebaptism  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Now  how  does  this  altered  plan  afifect  the  present  Confer- 
ence ? 

We  hereby  give  up  the  Conference  Committee.  It  seems 
almost  useless  to  go  into  the  reasons  fully,  but  I  may  point  out 
one  or  two.  It  seemed  impossible  to  get  a  truly  representative 
committee.  Some  of  our  oldest  and  most  experienced  breth- 
ren go  into  the  country,  perhaps  three  hundred  miles  away. 
London  is,  and  must  continue  to  be,  largely  a  training-school, 
many  of  the  stations  being  occupied  by  raw  and  new  preachers, 
so  that  the  men  who  could  usefully  advise  us  and  to  whom  we 
could  safely  confide  our  secrets  are  not  there  as  a  rule. 

If  you  are  in  any  trouble  you  don't  want  to  go  to  a  com- 
mittee. You  come  to  me  and  say,  "  I  want  to  see  you  alone." 
If  any  great  question  involving  the  happiness  of  us  all  were  to 
arise,  the  only  plan  would  be,  it  seems  to  me,  to  call  together 
the  most  experienced  of  our  brethren,  and,  if  need  be,  all  the 
others ;  but  for  all  ordinary  purposes  it  seems  by  far  the 
simplest  way,  the  only  mutually  satisfactory  plan,  for  me  to 
deal  with  the  brethren  personally  and,  when  possible,  face  to 
face.  Then  a  committee  is  far  too  slozv  for  us!  A  brother 
writes,  "  I  can  have  such  and  such  a  building  for  so  much  a 
week,  and  the  man  wants  an  answer  immediately.  What  shall 
I  say?  Please  send  us  a  telegram."  There  is  no  time  to  call 
any  committee  together.  We  have  to  act  at  once.  Fancy  the 
Russians  having  a  committee  to  carry  on  their  war ! 

No  superintendent  is  hampered  with  a  committee  at  his 
station,  and  why  should  I  be  hampered  with  one?  If  I  am  to 
be,  I  shall  see  that  you  each  have  one  to  deal  with  as  well ! 

This  is  a  question  of  confidence  as  between  you  and  me,  and 
if  you  can't  trust  me  it  is  no  use  for  us  to  attempt  to  work 
together.  Confidence  in  God  and  in  me  are  absolutely  in- 
dispensable both  now  and  ever  afterwards. 

The  step  was  taken,  then,  which  made  William  Booth  a 
real  master  of  the  Christian  Mission,  but  the  step  which  was 
to  make  him  the  General  of  a  world-wide  Army  was  delayed 
for  a  year  by  many  and  great  difficulties  which  immediately 
presented  themselves  in  the  sphere  of  doctrine. 

Although  William  Booth  had  decided  that  the  Christian 


XXV]  "HOLINESS  MEETINGS"  377 

Mission  should  set  before  itself  the  task  of  rousing  the 
indifference  of  the  apathetic,  and  of  converting  the  sunken 
and  depraved  sinner,  he  was  still  immensely  conscious  of 
the  need  for  spiritual  growth  in  holiness.  His  one  tendency 
towards  mysticism  lay  in  this  direction,  and  unless  we  per- 
fectly acquaint  ourselves  with  the  character  of  this  tend- 
ency we  shall  miss  the  secret  of  his  inner  life. 

He  believed  and  taught  that  every  man  is  born  in  sin, 
and  because  of  sin  cannot  inherit  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 
He  believed  and  taught  that  an  absolute  and  conscious 
change  of  nature  must  take  place  in  every  individual  before 
he  can  inherit  eternal  life.  The  Church  teaches  that  an  in- 
fant is  cleansed  from  original  sin  by  the  sprinkling  of  water 
in  baptism.  To  William  Booth,  as  to  the  majority  of 
philosophers  and  men  of  science,  the  sprinkling  of  water  in 
baptism  could  not  by  any  possible  means  be  anything  more 
than  a  symbol ;  it  could  not  make  the  smallest  difference  to 
the  character  and  temperament  of  the  child.  John  Stuart 
Mill  had  painfully  learned  from  experience  "  that  many 
false  opinions  may  be  exchanged  for  true  ones,  without  in 
the  least  altering  the  habit  of  mind  of  which  false  opinions 
are  the  result."  Human  personality  is  neither  to  be  re- 
generated by  a  ceremony  nor  to  be  transformed  by  logic. 
But  Booth  declared,  and  philosophers  like  William  James 
—  Henri  Bergson,  too,  we  may  even  say  —  are  certainly  of 
his  opinion,  that  a  radical,  intelligent,  and  fully  conscious 
change  of  nature  is  possible  to  man;  and  this  radical,  intel- 
ligent, and  fully  conscious  change  of  nature,  he  held  to  be 
that  "  conversion,"  without  which,  according  to  the  teaching 
of  Christ,  man  cannot  enter  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven. 

Baptism,  therefore,  was  for  William  Booth  a  detail  of 
symbolism,  and  he  left  it  freely  to  his  followers  to  decide 
Avhether  they  would  be  baptized  or  not ;  he  felt  no  vital  con- 
cern in  the  matter.  His^mphasis  was  on  Conversion,  the 
conversion  of  the  adult  and  intelligent  individual,  and  this 
was  the  first  and  greatest  of  his  preachings.  But  beyond 
the  arrest  of  the  sinner,  and  the  awakening  of  the  soul  to 
the  living  fact  of  a  Living  God,  lay  the  path  of  Holiness; 
and  here  William  Booth  could  not  stop  and  leave  conversion 
to  follow  its  own  evolution. 


378  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

The  doctrine  he  held  on  this  subject  was  a  variant  of 
the  doctrine  known  as  Entire  Sanctification.  This  doc- 
trine, as  the  extremists  hold  it,  teaches  that  a  converted  man 
can  so  grow  in  grace,  can  so  open  the  doors  of  his  volition 
to  the  will  of  God,  that  sin  ceases  to  have  the  least  power 
over  him ;  that  he  is  cleansed  of  all  evil,  and  becomes  per- 
fectly pure,  perfectly  holy,  even  in  the  sight  of  God. 
William  Booth  never  held  this  doctrine,  but  he  did  seek 
perfection  in  love  after  conversion,  and  taught  men  to  aspire 
after  entire  sanctification  of  the  will. 

To  reach  this  condition  was,  with  him,  if  not  the  supreme 
object  of  each  converted  man  and  woman  in  the  Christian 
Mission,  at  least  the  first  of  all  their  personal  objects.  First 
they  must  preach  the  repentance  of  sins ;  first  they  must 
labour  to  rouse  the  whole  world  to  the  truth  of  Christ ;  but 
after  this,  if  possible  simultaneously  with  this,  they  must 
wrestle  with  God  for  the  entire  sanctification  of  their  own 
souls. 

In  this  way  he  came  to  encourage  what  were  called 
"  Holiness  Meetings."  The  character  of  these  meetings 
eventually  provoked  the  fiercest  attacks  ever  made  upon 
him  by  religious  people,  and  many  religious  people  thought 
that  they  were  something  extravagant  and  something  un- 
healthy. Nevertheless,  by  a  careful  and  sympathetic  con- 
sideration of  these  remarkable  attempts  to  deepen  spiritual 
consciousness  we  approach  a  rightful  understanding  of 
William  Booth's  religiousness,  and  perceive  with  some  de- 
gree of  clearness  the  character  of  the  struggle  which  was 
taking  place  in  his  own  soul. 

Mrs.  Booth,  as  we  have  said,  was  on  the  side  of  Holiness. 
She  had  a  young  but  powerful  ally  in  the  person  of  her 
eldest  son,  Bramwell.  But  while  Bramwell  Booth  was  an 
enthusiast  for  these  Holiness  Meetings,  almost  a  leader 
among  the  evangelists  of  the  Mission  who  taught  Entire 
Sanctification,  he  was  more  inclined  for  challenging  the 
world  than  his  mother,  more  disposed  to  startle  the  con- 
science of  the  age.  Bramwell  Booth,  who  had  shivered  for 
a  long  while  on  the  banks  of  doubt  concerning  his  fitness 
for  the  work  of  an  evangelist,  and  who  had  shrunk  in  timid 
dread  for  some  considerable  time  from  the  very  thought  of 


XXV]  '*  HOLINESS  MEETINGS  " 


379 


preaching,  was  now,  with  George  Railton,  among  the  most 
enthusiastic  and  aggressive  of  the  Mission  workers. 

The  following  descriptions  of  Holiness  Meetings,  taken 
from  The  Christian  Mission  Magazine,  afford  no  real  pic- 
ture of  the  extraordinary  sights  which  were  witnessed,  nor 
do  they  give  an  adequate  acccount  of  the  effects  produced 
upon  the  souls  of  those  who  took  part  in  them.  Bramwell 
Booth  tells  me  that,  after  many  years  of  reflection,  and 
disposed  as  he  now  is  to  think  that  in  some  degree  the 
atmosphere  of  those  meetings  was  calculated  to  affect  hys- 
terically certain  unbalanced  or  excitable  temperaments,  he 
is  nevertheless  convinced,  entirely  convinced,  that  some- 
thing of  the  same  force  which  manifested  itself  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost  manifested  itself  at  those  meetings  in  London. 
He  describes  how  men  and  women  would  suddenly  fall  flat 
upon  the  ground,  and  remain  in  a  swoon  or  trance  for  many 
hours,  rising  at  last  so  transformed  by  joy  that  they  could 
do  nothing  but  shout  and  sing  in  an  ecstasy  of  bliss.  He 
tells  me  that  beyond  all  question  he  saw  instances  of  levita- 
tion  —  people  lifted  from  their  feet  and  moving  forward 
through  the  air.  He  saw  bad  men  and  women  stricken 
suddenly  with  an  overmastering  despair,  flinging  up  their 
arms,  uttering  the  most  terrible  cries,  and  falling  backward, 
as  if  dead  —  supernaturally  convinced  of  their  sinful  condi- 
tion. The  floor  would  sometimes  be  crowded  with  men 
and  women  smitten  down  by  a  sense  of  overwhelming 
spiritual  reality,  and  the  workers  of  the  Mission  would  lift 
their  fallen  bodies  and  carry  them  to  other  rooms,  so  that 
the  Meetings  might  continue  without  distraction.  Doctors 
were  often  present  at  these  gatherings.  Conversions  took 
place  in  great  numbers;  the  evangelists  of  the  Mission  de- 
rived strength  and  inspiration  for  their  difficult  work;  and 
the  opposition  of  the  world  only  deepened  the  feeling  of 
the  more  enthusiastic  that  God  was  powerfully  working  in 
their  midst. 

The  following  article  from  The  Christian  Mission  Maga- 
zine for  Scptemljer,  1878,  gives  an  account  of  "  A  Night  of 
Prayer,"  lasting  from  the  8th  to  the  9th  of  August: 

Compelled  from  want  of  space  to  omit  a  full  report  in  de- 


38o  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

tail,  we  must  endeavour,  as  briefly  as  possible,  to  describe 
what  was  undoubtedly  the  most  wonderful  meeting  ever  held 
in  the  history  of  the  Mission. 

The  whole  company,  amounting  to  three  or  four  hundred, 
settled  down  for  the  whole  night  —  a  very  great  advantage 
over  meetings  from  which  many  have  had  to  retire  at  midnight 
or  early  morning  —  and  from  the  beginning  to  the  end,  weary 
as  almost  every  one  was,  after  four  days  of  almost  ceaseless 
[previous]  services,  the  interest  and  life  of  the  meeting  never 
diminished. 

Scarcely  had  the  first  hymn  been  commenced,  when  a  com- 
pany of  butchers  assembled  in  a  yard  next  door,  with  the 
avowed  intention  of  disturbing  us,  commenced  a  hullabaloo 
with  blowing  a  horn,  rattling  of  cans,  and  other  articles,  so  as 
to  keep  up  a  ceaseless  din,  which  was  heard  even  whilst  the 
whole  company  sang  aloud.  But  nobody  was  disturbed.  We 
felt  we  were  fighting,  that  was  all,  and  every  one  seemed  to 
sing  all  the  more  gladly  and  confidently. 

Glory,  glory,  Jesus  saves  me, 
Glory,  glory  to  the  Lamb. 

But  the  enemy  had  a  new  device.  By  burning  something 
placed  near  open  ventilators,  and  in  a  stove-pipe  which  passed 
through  that  wall,  they  filled  the  air  all  through  the  building 
with  an  effluvium  which  set  every  one  coughing.  Two  or  three 
sisters  in  delicate  health  had  to  go  out  for  a  few  minutes. 
Singing  and  praying  became  for  a  while  all  but  impossible. 
There  was  a  rush  of  strong  men  to  close  up  every  aperture. 
The  stove-pipe  was  not  only  stopped  but  pulled  down  in  a  few 
seconds,  and  a  watchman  was  soon  at  a  top  window  with  a 
bull's-eye  ready  for  identification  and  defence,  should  they 
again  come  up  to  the  attack.  Throughout,  we  saw  no  ruffled 
countenance,  no  clouded  brow,  heard  no  harsh  word.  The  dis- 
turbance was  met  even  more  promptly  within  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  the  company  than  in  its  outward  forms,  and  then, 
with  a  relieved  atmosphere  and  an  increased  joy,  we  betook 
ourselves  again  to  the  business  of  the  night. 

We  give  up  all  attempt  to  even  sum  up  the  addresses  de- 
livered by  Mr.  Booth,  Mr.  Bramwell  and  Miss  Booth,  Bros. 
Robinson,  Dowdle,  Corbridge,  and  Sister  Dowdle.  The  great 
object  of  the  meeting  was  to  address  God,  and  it  was  in  prayer 
and  in  receiving  answers  that  the  meeting  was  above  all  dis- 
tinguished. 

Round  the  table  in  the  great  central  square  Satan  was  fought 
and  conquered,  as  it  were,  visibly  by  scores  of  persons  whose 
names   and  number  no  one  attempted  to  take.     Evangelists 


XXV]  "HOLINESS  MEETINGS"  381 

came  there  burdened  with  the  consciousness  of  past  failings 
and  unfaithfulness,  and  were  so  filled  with  the  power  of  God 
that  they  literally  danced  for  joy.  Brethren  and  sisters  who 
had  hesitated  as  to  yielding  themselves  to  go  forth  anywhere 
to  preach  Jesus,  came  and  were  set  free  from  every  doubt  and 
fear,  and  numbers  whose  peculiar  besetments  and  difficulties 
God  alone  can  read  came  and  washed  and  made  them  white  in 
the  Blood  of  the  Lamb. 

That  scene  of  wrestling  prayer  and  triumphing  faith  no  one 
who  saw  it  can  ever  forget.  We  saw  one  collier  labouring 
with  his  fists  upon  the  floor  and  in  the  air,  just  as  he  was  ac- 
customed to  struggle  with  the  rock  in  his  daily  toil,  until  at 
length  he  gained  the  diamond  he  was  seeking  —  perfect  de- 
liverance from  the  carnal  mind  —  and  rose  up  shouting  and 
almost  leaping  for  joy.  Big  men,  as  well  as  women,  fell  to  the 
ground,  lay  there  for  some  time  as  if  dead,  overwhelmed  with 
the  Power  from  on  High.  When  the  gladness  of  all  God's 
mighty  deliverance  burst  upon  some,  they  laughed  as  well  as 
cried  for  joy,  and  some  of  the  younger  evangelists  might  have 
been  seen,  like  lads  at  play,  locked  in  one  another's  arms  and 
rolling  each  other  over  on  the  floor. 

Well,  perhaps  there  zvas  something  besides  the  genuine  work 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  there,  perhaps  there  were  cases  of  self- 
deception  and  presumption,  perhaps  there  were  some  carried 
away  by  the  contagion  of  the  general  feeling.  How  could  it 
ever  be  otherwise  while  Satan  comes  up  with  the  people  of  the 
Lord?  But,  at  any  rate,  God  wrought  there  with  a  mighty 
hand  and  with  an  outstretched  arm,  so  as  to  confound  the 
wicked  one  and  to  raise  many  of  His  people  into  such  right- 
eousness and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost  as  they  never 
had  before,  and  thousands,  if  not  millions,  of  souls  will  have 
to  rejoice  for  ever  over  blessings  received  by  them  through 
the  instrumentality  of  those  who  were  sanctified  or  quickened 
between  the  8th  and  9th  of  August,  1878. 

The  usual  unintoxicating  wine  not  having  been  prepared  for 
sacrament,  we  managed  uncommonly  well  with  water,  and  in 
fact  everybody  seemed  to  have  got  into  a  condition  in  which 
outward  circumstances  are  scarcely  noticed,  and  the  soul  feasts 
on  God,  no  matter  what  passes  outside.  We  had  been  drink- 
ing the  best  wine  for  hours. 

After  sacrament  only  a  quarter  of  an  hour  remained  for  the 
love  feast,  if  we  were  to  conclude,  as  intended,  at  six;  but 
under  Captain  Cadman's  energetic  leading  eighty-one  bore 
their  clear  simple  testimony  to  the  Blood  that  cleanses  from 
all  sin  in  a  very  few  minutes  over  that  time,  and  after  a  little 
prayer  we  parted.  Of  course  some  felt  sleepy  when  all  was 
over;  but  so  little  exhausted  were  most  of   the  evangelists, 


382  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

that  a  business  meeting,  commenced  at  7  o'clock,  was  kept  up 
with  energy  for  nearly  two  hours,  while  many  remained  and 
transacted  business  with  Mr.  Booth  until  one  o'clock. 

Another  account,  this  time  of  a  "  Musical  Service," 
shows  how  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  was  welcomed  as  a 
return  to  the  religion  of  the  first  century : 

August,  1878. 
.  .  .  The  sight  of  the  faces  on  the  platform  was  one  never 
to  be  forgotten  —  it  was  more  than  joy  that  lit  them  all  up  — 
it  was  the  rapture  of  spiritual  drunkards.  When  we  saw  one 
brother,  advanced  in  years  and  stiffened  by  the  long  habit  of 
solemn  religious  ''  ordinances,"  dancing,  yes,  fairly  dancing  to 
the  music,  whilst  others,  less  constrained,  were  tossing  bare 
arms  about  and  rolling  hither  and  thither  as  they  sang,  we 
realized  as  never  before  how  free  and  easy  the  grace  of  God 
can  make  the  people.  Here  is  once  more  the  old  religion, 
reckless  of  public  opinion  and  full  of  glory  and  God  which 
made  it  necessary  for  the  apostles  to  recommend  sobriety. 

Mr.  Ballington  Booth,  a  month  later,  gives  a  brief  de- 
scription of  a  "Holiness  Meeting,"  which  is  interesting: 

On  September  13  was  a  wonderful  time.  Never  shall  I 
forget  it.  Oh,  God  did  search  all  hearts  that  night.  After 
speaking  about  giving  up  all  and  being  kept  by  the  power  of 
God,  and  singing  "  I  am  trusting.  Lord,  in  Thee,"  we  fell  on 
our  faces  for  silent  prayer.  Then  God  Almighty  began  to 
convict  and  strive.  Some  began  to  weep,  some  groaned,  some 
cried  out  aloud  to  God.  One  man  said,  "  If  I  cannot  get  this 
blessing  I  cannot  live " ;  another  said,  '*  There's  something, 
there's  something.  Oh,  my  God,  my  God,  help  me.  Set  me 
straight;  put  my  heart  straight";  and  while  we  sang 

Saves  me  now,  saves  me  now, 
My  Jesus  saves  me  now, 

a  dear  young  sister  stepped  up  to  the  table,  then  two  more 
followed ;  and  now  we  sang  again. 

Saves  me  now,  saves  me  now, 
Yes,  Jesus  saves  me  now. 

Many  more  were  smitten.  We  dropped  on  our  knees  again. 
Five  or  six  more  came  forward.  One  dear  man  took  his  pipe 
from  his  pocket  and  laid  it  on  the  table,  resolved  that  it  should 
stand  between  his  soul  and  God  no  longer.     Then  six  or  seven 


XXV]  ''  HOLINESS  MEETINGS  "  383 

more  came  forward.  We  could  scarce  then  sing  or  pray. 
Every  one  was  overpowered  by  the  Spirit.  One  young  man, 
after  struggHng  and  wrestling  for  nearly  an  hour,  shouted 
"  Glory  !  glory  !  glory  !  I've  got  it.  Oh  !  Bless  God  !  "  One 
young  woman  shook  her  head,  saying,  "  No,  not  to-night,"  but 
soon  was  seen  on  the  ground  pleading  mightily  with  God. 
Every  unsanctified  man  or  woman  felt  indescribably.  Three 
or  four  times  we  cleared  the  tables  and  forms,  and  again  and 
again  they  were  filled.     And  all  joined  in  singing  the  words, 

I  have  thee,  oh  !  I  have  thee 
Every  hour  I  have  thee ; 

and  one  brother  said,  "  Oh,  oh !  if  this  ain't  heaven,  what'll 
heaven  be?"  Another  brother  said,  "I  must  jump."  I  said, 
"  Then  jump,"  and  he  jumped  all  round.  So  we  sang,  cried, 
laughed,  shouted,  and  after  twenty-three  had  given  their  all  to 
the  Master,  trusting  Him  to  keep  them  from  sinning,  as  He 
had  pardoned  their  sins,  we  closed,  singing 

Glorj%  glory,  Jesus  saves  me, 
Glory,  glory  to  the  Lamb. 

William  Booth  declared  his  conviction  that  "  the  work 
was  of  God";  he  met  the  opposition  of  those  among  his 
followers  who  criticised  the  excitement  of  these  meetings 
by  the  assertion  of  a  practical  man,  that  if  of  God  nothing 
could  stop  this  movement,  and  that  if  not  of  God  it  would 
come  to  an  end  of  itself.  He  was  not  perhaps  so  deeply 
interested  in  this  development  as  Catherine  and  Bramwell 
Booth,  but  he  was  by  no  means  opposed  to  it. 

Here  and  there  in  the  letters  of  William  Booth  at  this 
period  we  find  approving  references  to  the  excitement,  the 
testing  nature  of  this  new  movement  in  the  Mission : 

Our  Stockton  and  Middlesboro'  branches  are  not  likely  to 
be  much  troubled  with  half-hearted  converts,  for  the  ordeal 
through  which  any  one  has  to  pass,  in  coming  out  for  Christ 
at  either  of  the  theatres,  is  too  severe  to  be  popular. 

At  Stockton  a  sort  of  gangway  has  been  made,  leading  from 
the  pit  to  the  stage.  Penitents  have  to  fnce  this  narrow  way, 
and  cross  what  looks  like  the  captain's  bridge  of  a  river-steam- 
boat, ere  they  can  reach  the  stage,  where  prayer  is  wont  to 
be  made  for  them. 

At  Middlesboro'  they  have  to  be  led  round  by  various  pas- 
sages and  staircases,  and  then  suddenly  come  out  on  to  the 


384  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

stage,  which,  being  lit  from  the  top,  displays  them  to  the  whole 
house  as  they  kneel  before  the  Lord. 

We  had  the  most  wonderful  meeting  of  late.  At  the  finish 
two  brethren  swooned.  Have  just  heard  of  a  meeting  held  in 
somebody's  house,  and  a  brother  who  had  sneered  and  dis- 
believed in  prostration  being  knocked  down,  etc. 

But  we  cannot  find  any  out-and-out  declaration  in  favour 
of  the  new  development  among  William  Booth's  letters  or 
addresses,  his  mind  being  evidently  preoccupied  with  the 
master-puzzle  of  his  difficulties  — "  How  to  Reach  the 
Masses." 

This  period  was  a  period  of  disintegration.  Many  of  the 
workers  in  the  Mission,  between  1875  ^rid  1878,  left  Wil- 
liam Booth,  and  some  of  them  none  too  fairly.  He  was 
criticised  for  setting  women  over  men;  the  demands  he 
made  were  felt  to  be  exacting;  the  open-air  work  tried  the 
courage  of  the  more  nervous  or  fastidious;  the  Holiness 
Meetings  were  disapproved  of  by  those  who  objected  to 
excitement,  and  the  teaching  of  Holiness  by  others. 
Catherine  Booth  stood  more  and  more  for  Holiness.  She 
had  one  definite  prescription,  looking  beyond  conversion 
and  preaching  the  "  making  of  character."  Bramwell 
Booth  remembers  the  repetition  of  that  phrase  upon  her 
lips;  in  her  teaching  and  in  her  conversation  she  was  for 
ever  saying,  "  make  character  —  make  character."  William 
Booth,  who  was  troubled  by  the  slowness  of  so  wonderful 
a  movement  to  convert  the  world,  was  puzzled  why  more 
progress  was  not  made,  Catherine  Booth  challenged  him 
to  think  ahead,  demanding,  "  Where  is  it  all  leading? 
Are  we  a  religious  body  or  are  we  an  appendix  to  the 
Churches?"  And  William  Booth's  only  answer  at  this 
time  was.  "  I  don't  want  to  found  a  new  sect." 

The  following  address,  delivered  before  the  Annual 
Conference  of  the  Mission  in  June,  1876,  shows  pretty 
clearly  in  which  w^ay  the  thoughts  of  William  Booth  were 
moving,  and  manifests  as  clearly  as  anything  w-e  have  yet 
found  among  his  public  utterances  the  spirit  which  in  little 
more  than  a  year  was  to  call  the  Salvation  Army  into  being. 
This  most  characteristic  address,  ringing  with  honesty, 
aflame  with  energy,  and  passionate  with  love  is,  moreover. 


XXV]  "  HOLINESS  MEETINGS  "  385 

one  of  the  most  valuable  biographical  documents  left  be- 
hind him  by  the  founder  of  the  Army : 

In  introducing  the  subject  selected  for  consideration  and  dis- 
cussion this  evening,  the  first  inquiry  which  naturally  suggests 
itself  is : 

WHAT    IS    A    MISSION    STATION? 

To  this  I  reply  that,  as  I  understand  it,  it  is  not  a  building, 
or  a  chapel,  or  a  hall ;  it  is  not  even  a  society,  but  a  band  of 
people  united  together  to  mission,  to  attack,  to  christianize  an 
entire  town  or  neighbourhood.  When  an  Evangelist  receives 
an  appointment  from  this  Conference  it  is  not  contemplated 
that  he  shall  deal  merely  with  those  who  are  already  within 
the  walls  of  certain  buildings,  or  with  those  who  may  be  in- 
duced to  come  inside  them ;  but  it  is  intended  that  he  shall  be 
an  apostle  of  the  Gospel  to  all  those  who  live  around.  When 
you  reach  the  station  assigned  you,  if  it  has  not  been  done 
already,  you  should  take  your  stand  in  that  hall,  or  theatre,  or 
tent,  and  draw  a  line  around  the  breadth  of  population  you 
can  hope  to  reach,  and  make  that  your  parish,  and  aim,  with 
tears  and  prayers,  and  the  trumpet-blast  of  the  Gospel,  to 
christianize  every  soul  within  it. 

Before  you  manage  a  Mission  station  you  must 

GET   ONE. 

What  a  high  and  holy  privilege  it  is  to  be  a  soul-winner. 
"  They  that  be  wise  shall  shine  as  the  brightness  of  the  firma- 
ment ;  and  they  that  turn  many  to  righteousness  as  the  stars 
for  ever  and  ever."  Who  believes  this  ?  Earnest,  determined, 
sympathetic  men,  baptized  with  the  Holy  Ghost,  may  go  forth 
and  save  multitudes  from  going  down  to  the  pit.  Common 
men  —  men  of  quite  ordinary  ability  —  can  do  this ;  but  where 
are  they?  How  is  it  we  are  not  besieged  with  men  crying  — 
Here  am  I,  send  me?  We  want  a  holy  ambition  for  this  work 
—  men  who  see  the  privilege  and  desire  the  honour  of  bearing 
the  tidings  of  life  and  liberty  to  the  ignorant,  dying,  uncared- 
for  masses  going  down  to  Hell  from  our  very  doors  in  this 
boasted  Christian  land. 

Any  one  can  go  into  training  for  this  work.  There  are 
plenty  of  street-corners  available  in  any  part  of  this  great  city 
and  throughout  the  land,  where  any  brother  or  sister  may  find 
an  audience  and  get  a  band  of  converts  together,  and  in  this 
amateur  way  speedily  gather  all  the  education  and  qualifica- 
tions necessary.  The  best  qualification  for  managing  a  station 
must  be  to  make  one ;  the  next  best  plan  to  this  is  to  help  to 
work  one  that  is  made.  If  it  be  there,  this  will  soon  develop 
the  ability  to  do  that  work  altogether. 

Now  I  am  not  going  to  give  a  list  of  the  qualifications  for 


386  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

efficiently  managing  a  station,  but  simply  to  state  how  it  can 
be  done.  The  man  who  accomplishes  it  proves  it  thereby  — 
and  he  can  prove  satisfactorily  in  no  other  way  —  that  he  has 
the  necessary  ability  for  the  work.  You  have  doubtless  heard 
of  the  two  men  who  met  in  prison,  one  of  whom  said  to  the 
other,  "What  have  they  sent  you  here  for?"  "Oh,  for  so 
and  so."  "  But,"  said  the  other,  "  they  can't  lock  you  up  for 
that."  "Oh,  yes  they  can."  "But  I  tell  you  they  can't." 
"  Well,  but  here  I  am."  Just  so ;  I  care  not  what  the  preach- 
ing abilities  or  other  qualifications  of  a  man  or  woman  may  be, 
if  he  does  not  succeed  —  if  he  does  not  get  the  people  saved, 
and  keep  them  —  he  proves  incontestably  thereby  that  he  has 
missed  his  vocation,  and  he  ought  at  once  to  turn  over  a  new 
leaf  and  alter  his  plans  and  labours,  or  inquire  for  some  other 
walk  in  life  in  which  he  can  succeed ;  and  if,  on  the  other  hand, 
however  inferior  and  unlikely,  humanly  considered,  the  work- 
er's qualifications  may  appear,  if  at  the  end  of  the  year,  when 
he  counts  up  his  losses  and  gains,  he  brings  us  a  schedule  that 
tells  of  increased  numbers,  spirituality,  and  power,  he  proves 
incontestably  that  he  has  the  gifts  and  the  graces  which  qualify 
him  to  manage  a  Christian  Mission  station. 

HOW^   TO    MANAGE   A    STATION. 

Our  first  counsel  is : 

(l)    MAGNIFY   IT. 

Get  to  know  definitely  what  it  is  you  have  to  do.  Think 
what  it  is  to  be  an  ambassador  of  Christ  —  to  stand  between 
the  living  and  the  dead,  and  to  be  the  savour  of  life  unto  life, 
or  death  unto  death.  Consider  what  will  be  the  outcome  of 
the  faithful  discharge  of  your  duty  on  the  one  hand,  and  what 
will  follow  the  neglect  of  it  on  the  other.  Read  the  23rd  chap- 
ter of  Ezekiel,  and  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles ;  call  up  the  mem- 
ories of  the  holy,  successful  soul-winners  who  have  gone 
through  oceans  of  difficulties  and  led  thousands  to  the  Cross: 
lay  aside  every  weight  in  the  shape  of  worldly  idolatry  and 
self-indulgence,  and  then  lay  on  the  altar  every  power  of  body 
and  soul,  consecrating  all  you  have,  or  ever  hope  to  have,  to 
the  successful  accomplishment  of  the  greatest  undertaking  to 
which  God  could  possibly  have  called  you  here. 

To  successfully  manage  a  station  you  must 

(2)    LOVE   IT 

with  a  love  that  never  falters,  never  swerves,  never  dies.  You 
must  have  the  same  burning,  unquenchable  flame  that  Jesus 
had,  or  you  cannot  —  will  not  —  succeed ;  and  your  success  will 
be  just  according  to  the  measure  of  your  affection  for  your 


XXV]  "HOLINESS  MEETINGS"  387 

people  and  for  the  perishing  people  around  you.  This  love  — 
this  passion  for  souls  —  is  the  main-spring  of  religious  activ- 
ity and  the  principle  which  governs  all  real  and  lasting  work 
for  God.  Love,  rightly  directed,  makes  a  good  parent,  a  good 
husband,  a  ggod  workman ;  and  nothing  short  of  love,  and  a 
great  deal  of  it,  will  make  a  good  evangelist.  The  secret  of 
success  is  often  inquired  for ;  here  it  is :  It  is  not  in  natural 
gifts,  or  human  bearing,  or  exceptional  opportunities,  or 
earthly  advantages,  but  in  a  heart  consumed  with  the  flame  of 
ardent,  holy,  heavenly  love. 

Love  ti'ill  make  a  man  study.  He  wants  to  save  his  people ; 
his  aim  is  to  bless  them,  not  to  amuse  them.  He  wants  to  lead 
them  on  to  know  God,  to  imitate  Christ,  to  be  meet  for  Heaven. 
This  he  sees  is  to  be  done  through  the  truth,  He  has  now  one 
absorbing  anxiety  to  persuade  them  to  hear,  to  think,  to  feel, 
to  yield,  to  be  saved,  to  be  holy.  Here  is  work  for  him.  He 
must  have  arguments  that  will  convince,  facts  that  will  affirm, 
illustrations  that  will  explain,  and  truths  that  will  both  awaken 
and  interest,  and  convert.  He  must  range  through  earth,  and 
Heaven,  and  Hell,  for  matter  to  make  men  flee  to  Christ,  save 
their  souls  and  bathe  in  the  ocean  of  redeeming  love.  He  has 
set  his  heart  on  this  —  not  on  studying,  but  on  saving  souls ; 
but  as  souls  are  saved  by  preaching,  and  as  he  cannot  preach 
unless  he  has  something  to  say  likely  to  accomplish  his  end, 
he  becomes  a  real  student^  a  thinker,  and  it  is  love  that  makes 
him  one. 

Love  li'ill  m-ake  you  pray.  Love  wants  all  the  help  it  can 
command :  and  as  it  realizes  that  the  great  God  is  in  sympathy, 
and  willing  to  be  a  co-worker  with  any  and  every  heart  set  on 
this  mission  of  mercy,  it  will  ever  be  knocking  at  the  door  of 
Heaven  for  countenance  and  co-operation.  The  love  of  souls 
will  lead  you  into  the  spirit  of  ceaseless  intercession  with  Him 
whose  love  for  them  was  stronger  than  death. 

Love  zi'ill  make  you  feel.  A  stony-hearted  preacher  makes 
a  stony-hearted  people.  Perhaps  there  is  no  such  monstrosity 
in  the  universe  as  a  professed  representative  and  resemblance 
of  Jesus  Christ  who  goes  about  his  business  in  a  cold,  emotion- 
less spirit.  There  is  a  great  cry  in  some  directions  for  more 
intellect  in  the  pulpit ;  it  seems  to  me  that  there  is  a  far  greater 
need  for  more  heart. 

If  there  be  one  character  which  above  another  God  must 
abominate,  angels  weep  over,  and  devils  despise,  it  must  be  the 
automatical  preachers  who  can  discourse  by  the  hour  about  the 
love  of  Christ,  the  worth  of  souls,  the  terrors  of  judgment. 
and  the  sorrows  of  the  lost,  with  a  flinty  indifference  or  a 
ranting  fervour  which  hardly  lasts  the  service  over,  and 
which  all  can  see  is  put  on  for  the  occasion.  Oh,  these  min- 
isterial machines,  these  mechanical   preachers  who  are  quite 


388  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

content  if  their  salaries  are  paid  and  a  round  of  meetings 
gone  through,  are  the  curse  of  Christendom  and  the  wholesale 
manufacturers  of  backsliders  and  infidels.  May  God  deliver 
us  from  them.  Brethren,  whatever  other  gifts  you  have,  if 
you  are  to  succeed,  you  must  have  hearts,  and  hearts  that  can 
feel. 

Love  will  make  you  preach.  A  man  cannot  help  but  be  an 
interesting  talker  on  any  theme  on  which  his  nature  is  power- 
fully stirred,  and  on  which  he  has  any  measure  of  informa- 
tion. It  is  the  stolid,  indifferent,  professional  spouters  of  ser- 
mons that  can  get  neither  hearers  nor  souls.  Again  and  again 
in  his  autobiography,  Finney,  the  great  American  Evangelist, 
says,  "  I  let  out  my  heart  to  my  people  " ;  and  they  wept  and 
fell  under  the  power  of  God.  Of  how  many  preachers  can 
this  be  said?  How  often,  alas!  is  it  not  just  a  got-off  piece 
of  intellectual  stufif  —  and  not  much  intellect  either  —  that  is 
let  out.  The  last  thing  the  preacher  thinks  of  or  desires  is 
the  letting  out  of  his  heart,  and  consequently  the  heartless  per- 
formance is  met  with  a  heartless  response  from  those  who 
listen,  and  who,  after  a  few  minutes'  wonderment,  or,  as  it 
may  be,  admiration,  forget  the  whole  affair.  Oh,  if  you  love, 
you  will  pour  out  your  souls  before  the  people,  and  they  will 
weep  and  feel  in  return. 

Love  will  make  you  beloved.  If  you  love  your  people  they 
cannot  help  but  love  you  in  return.  There  are  exceptions  to 
all  rules.  There  is  a  November  time,  perhaps,  in  every  man's 
history,  when  everything  is  gloomy,  and  nothing  seems  to 
bring  sunshine  to  the  people's  hearts  so  twisted  and  perverted 
may  they  have  become.  Cross-currents  will  sometimes  run  so 
strongly  that,  try  as  you  will,  you  cannot  reach  the  desired 
haven  of  the  people's  aiifections.  But,  as  a  rule,  love  will 
prove  an  invincible  conqueror,  and  will  bring  the  people  to 
your  feet.  You  can  love  your  way  through  every  difficulty. 
Hold  on,  then,  even  though  the  more  you  love  the  less  you  are 
beloved.  ... 

To  manage  a  station  eiTectively  you  must 

(3)    NURSE   YOUR   PEOPLE. 

I  don't  mean  that  you  should  cozen,  and  comfort,  and  en- 
courage the  old  do-nothing  members,  if  there  are  any,  who 
come  with  their  mouths  open  three  times  every  Sabbath  to  be 
fed  in  idleness.  No !  Tip  up  their  cradle.  Make  them  ques- 
tion the  ground  of  their  religious  hopes.  Make  them  under- 
stand that  true  godliness  is  practical  benevolence,  and  that 
they  must  at  once  become  followers  of  Jesus,  and  go  in  for  a 
life  of  self-sacrifice  in  order  to  do  good  and  save  souls,  or 
else  give  up  all  hope  and  title  to  being  Christians.  Make  the 
people  see  this,  and  keep  on  at  it  until  they  do.     They  will  rub 


XXV]  '*  HOLINESS  MEETINGS  "  389 

their  eyes,  and  wake  up,  depend  upon  it,  when  they  do  see  it ; 
and  though  some  may  go  off  to  other  places  where  they  can 
be  edified  without  being  constantly  faced  with  their  neglected 
responsibilities,  others  will  go  to  work  with  a  will,  and  you 
will  soon  see  things  move.  But  I  was  saying  that  you  must 
nurse  your  people,  and  there  are  two  classes  that  seem  to  me 
to  want  specially  your  tender  care. 

There  are  the  zvandercrs.  England  is  full  of  backsliders. 
These  should  be  hunted  up,  and  brought  back.  .  .  . 

Nurse  the  converts.  .  .  .  My  experience  has  taught  me  that 
the  use  of  appropriate  means  is  as  indispensable  to  preserve 
the  converts  as  it  is  to  secure  them.  .  .  . 

I  leave  the  theology  of  this  question  to  the  doctors  of 
divinity.  I  simply  state  the  fact.  If  you  fathers  and  mothers 
want  to  rear  your  children  up  to  strong  man-  and  woman- 
hood, you  feed  and  watch  over  them  with  all  tender,  loving 
care;  and  if  you  evangelists,  and  brethren,  and  sisters,  in 
charge  of  God's  great  family  want  to  rear  up  for  Him  and  for 
humanity  the  babes  with  whom  you  are  entrusted,  to  perfect 
men  and  women  in  Jesus  Christ,  you  must  care  for  them : 
you  must  nurse  them.  If  you  keep  them,  brethren,  and  if 
your  returns  from  time  to  time  show  increases,  you  will  prove 
in  the  most  incontestable  manner  that  you  do  wisely  and  lov- 
ingly watch  them.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  you  do  not  —  if 
you  bring  statements  of  large  numbers  of  converts,  and  small 
or  no  increases  in  membership,  you  will  leave  it  open  for 
people  to  infer  either  that  the  conversions  are  not  real,  or  that, 
being  real,  they  are  not  properly  looked  after. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  the  question  of  dress  was 
at  this  period  of  transition  (1877)  occupying  the  thoughts 
of  William  Booth: 

Some  time  ago,  when  supping,  with  a  few  evangelistic 
friends,  with  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury,  his  lordship  said  to  us 
that  in  going  over  a  London  prison  the  chaplain  had  remarked 
the  rapid  increase  of  female  prisoners,  especially  young  people. 
And  in  reply  to  a  question  from  the  Earl  as  to  the  reason, 
the  chaplain  said  he  attributed  it  to  three  causes  —  drink, 
trashy  literature,  and  flashy  dress.  He  said  any  one  would 
be  surprised  to  see  the  tawdry  feathers,  and  flounces,  and 
flowers  decked  out  in  which  prisoners  came  in,  and  to  gain 
which  they  had  doubtless  been  tempted  to  commit  crime. 
Nothing  can  be  more  influential  on  this  important  question 
than  the  example  of  evangelists'  wives.  Our  young  men,  I 
suppose,  will  have  wives;  but  I  say  to  you  if  you  meet  with 
young  women  wearing  showy  dresses  don't  look  at  them,  and 


390  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

if  you  are  now  engaged  to  somebody  you  met  by  moonlight 
alone  long  ago,  before  you  saw  the  Christian  Mission,  make 
a  bargain  before  you  marry  them  that  they  shall  dress  neatly 
and  scripturally,  as  becometh  godliness,  and  so  appear  as  fit 
helpmates  for  men  who  preach  the  gospel  of  Christ. 

The  reference  in  this  letter  to  the  good  Lord  Shaftesbury 
raises  the  question  of  how  far  William  Booth  was  assisted 
at  this  time  by  the  sympathy  and  patronage  of  powerful 
people.  With  the  exception  of  Mr.  Samuel  Morley  it  may 
be  safely  said  that  the  Christian  Mission  had  few  friends 
among  the  influential  classes.  The  Booths  were  helped  by 
such  of  their  private  friends  as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Billups,  by 
the  brothers  John  and  Richard  Gory,  by  Mr.  Henry  Reed 
of  Tunbridge  Wells,  and  by  other  rich  people  whose 
acquaintance  they  had  made  in  the  provinces.  But  the 
governing  classes  knew  little,  if  anything,  of  this  strange 
work ;  and  the  religious  papers  took  every  care  to  prevent 
any  knowledge  of  the  Christian  Mission  from  reaching  their 
particular  constituencies.  In  spite  of  the  success  of  the 
Mission  in  East  London,  reports  rarely  appeared  in  the 
religious  papers  of  this  extraordinary  portent  in  the  re- 
ligious world.  The  Booths  were  isolated.  The  great  world 
knew  nothing  of  the  Mission.  Mrs.  Booth  was  talked  about 
by  many  fashionable  and  thoughtful  people,  and  when  she 
held  meetings  in  their  own  quarter  of  the  town  they  were 
willing,  even  anxious,  to  go  and  hear  her;  but  the  real 
work  of  the  Booths,  the  great  work  of  William  Booth,  in 
particular,  had  so  far  only  earned  among  powerful  people 
the  encouragement  and  support  of  Samuel  Morley. 

Of  the  shifts  to  which  William  Booth  was  often  put,  let 
the  following  extract  speak,  an  extract  from  one  of  his 
letters,  written  in  1878: 

...  I  severely  sprained  my  ankle,  and  then  a  snowstorm, 
such  as  had  not  occurred  for  years,  rendered  travelling  diffi- 
cult. Through  that  storm  I  had  to  go  to  Sunderland.  No 
cab  nor  conveyance  could  be  had,  and  so  I  used  such  carriage 
as  came  to  hand.  I  commenced  the  journey  on  the  stalwart 
shoulders  of  a  brother,  then  was  glad  to  rest  on  some  straw 
in  the  bottom  of  a  milk  cart,  and  before  I  reached  my  quarters 
at  Middlesboro'  that  night,  I  was  thankful  to  accept  the  serv- 
ice of  a  wheel-barrow. 


XXV]  "  HOLINESS  MEETINGS 


391 


rather  than  decreasing  at  this  time;  indeed  it  was  only  be- 
ginning to  show  the  intensity  of  its  hatred  for  such  methods 
as  the  Booths  employed.  From  Chatham,  in  1877,  comes 
the  following  report : 

.  .  .  We  had  a  little  opposition  on  the  Brook  —  a  big  burly 
fellow  holding  his  fist  within  an  inch  or  two  of  Bro.  Ridsdel's 
face  while  he  was  speaking,  and  threatening  to  do  all  sorts  of 
things ;  but  God  restrained  him.  As  he  turned  away  he  fairly 
gnashed  his  teeth  with  rage ;  but  we  sang  on  through  the  mud 
—  and  there  zvas  some  mud  too !  .  .  .  Monday,  the  29th,  was 
the  anniversary  tea-meeting.  At  eight  o'clock  we  left  the 
second  sitting  down  at  the  hall,  and  sang  in  procession  to  the 
Military  Road.  After  one  or  two  had  spoken,  the  publican  on 
the  left  opened  his  window  and  pitched  a  pail  of  water  on  to 
the  crowd  below.  Immediately  the  people  moved ;  but  though 
the  sisters  were  principally  upon  that  side,  and  the  water  fell 
upon  their  Sunday  hats  plentifully,  the  ring  was  not  broken 
for  a  moment,  and  every  one  heard  the  hearty  Amen  that 
burst  from  all  as  the  dear  sister  who  was  speaking  wiped  the 
water  from  her  face,  and  cried,  "  May  the  Lord  save  that  dear 
man."  In  the  meantime  the  crowd  had  tremendously  in- 
creased, and  God  came  into  our  midst.  Then  the  publican 
gave  us  another  pail  of  water ;  but  still  we  kept  believing  and 
the  ring  was  unbroken.  There  was  a  solemn  influence;  no 
one  spoke  a  word  while  we  sang  — 

But  till  washed  in  the  Blood  of  a  crucified  Lord 
We  can  never  be  ready  to  die. 

And  just  then  a  fine  s-ailor,  apparently  a  man-of-war's  man. 
stepped  into  the  ring,  and  grasping  my  hand  with  tears  in 
his  eyes,  said,  "  Oh,  sir,  can  I  speak  to  you?"  The  arrow  of 
conviction  had  smitten  home.  Then  I  spoke  a  word  or  two, 
and  then  a  third  pail  of  water  from  a  publican,  seemingly 
aimed  at  me.  but  missing  the  mark,  fell  principally  upon  his 
own  customers. 

Worse  was  the  condition  in  London,  as  is  shown  by  a 
report  from  mission  work  in  Hackney  at  the  end  of  1878: 

.  .  .  Whilst  missioning  the  streets  I  came  through  the 
court  where  this  affair  happened  [two  policemen  knocked 
down  by  a  gang],  and  a  big  ruffian  came  running  at  me. 
knocking  me  about  till  he,  with  others,  jostled  me  into  the 
main  street.  Two  policemen  standing  there,  I  at  once  asked 
for  protection,  which  they  refused.  I  then  went  on  singing, 
"  My  soul  is  now  tmitcd."  when  these  two  policemen  caught 


392      THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap,  xxv] 

hold  of  me  and  demanded  my  name  and  address,  which  I  at 
once  gave;  and  on  again  we  went  singing,  when  the  police- 
men followed,  kicking  me  upon  the  legs  and  trying  to  push 
me  over.  I  then  walked  backwards  before  my  band,  the  police 
still  jumping  upon  my  feet  and  kicking  my  shins,  till  we  ar- 
rived at  the  hall,  where  the  gate-keeper,  keeping  the  rough 
boys  out,  was  pushed  down  the  steps  by  these  policemen,  and 
one  of  the  teachers  coming  up  at  the  time  was  served  in  the 
same  manner. 

On  Sunday,  Dec.  24th  .  .  .  while  in  the  open  air  in  the 
afternoon,  passing  "  The  Green  Dragon,"  the  publican  came 
out  and  blackguarded  us.  He  then  sent  out  half  a  dozen 
drunken  fellows,  some  of  them  six  feet  high,  who  commenced 
knocking  me  about;  and  one  of  them,  laying  hold  of  me, 
ripped  my  trousers  nearly  in  two ;  another  one  knocking  my  hat 
off  and  kicking  it  in  double.  Thank  God  my  head  was  not 
in  it.  .  .  .  We  are  often  pelted  with  dead  cats  and  rats  whilst 
processioning  in  the  streets.  .  .  .  On  Sunday,  Dec.  31st,  our 
open-air  services  were  well  attended.  Whilst  in  a  back  street 
a  butcher  ran  out  at  me,  and,  with  clenched  fist,  drew  his 
arm  back  as  if  he  would  have  knocked  me  to  the  ground,  but, 
with  the  assistance  of  his  neighbours  and  friends,  he  was  taken 
back  again,  while  at  the  same  time,  Bro.  King  received  a  blow 
on  the  back  of  the  head  from  a  youth  who  was  the  worse  for 
liquor.  But  in  the  midst  of  all  this  we  can  -say  that  none  of 
these  things  move  us. 

But  in  spite  of  coldness  and  neglect  on  the  part  of  the 
Churches,  and  in  spite  of  brutal  opposition  from  the  mob, 
the  Christian  Mission  grew  in  numbers  and  increased  in 
enthusiasm  during  those  hard  and  dififiicult  years  of  1877 
and  1878. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

LETTERS   OF   THE    PERIOD   IN   VARIOUS    MOODS 
1876-1878 

In  the  midst  of  his  tempestuous  life  WilHam  Booth  found 
time  to  write  to  his  children,  to  his  friends,  and  to  his  wife 
whenever  she  was  absent  from  him.  Some  of  these  letters 
are  unfortunately  dull  with  the  local  dulness  of  a  small 
chronicle ;  but  here  and  there  we  find  a  phrase,  an  exclama- 
tion, or  a  vigorous  piece  of  sermonizing  which  helps  one  to 
understand  something  of  the  man's  nature.  Before  pro- 
ceeding, then,  to  an  account  of  the  transition  from  the 
Christian  Mission  to  the  Salvation  Army  we  shall  make  a 
few  extracts  from  these  letters,  whenever  they  seem  to 
assist  our  history. 

We  find  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Billups  a  complaint 
that  his  wife  is  "  moiled  and  muddled  with  some  dress- 
making business  " —  a  domestic  labour  for  which  he  had  no 
sympathy.  He  writes  on  another  occasion  to  his  wife,  and 
refers  to  this  same  troublesome  question  of  millinery : 

Katie  says  you  are  gone  shopping.  I  dread  the  sound  of 
the  word  shop.  Mind!  Do  set  an  example.  I  still  incline 
to  the  thought  that  a  cloth  would  have  been  nice  for  Katie's 
jacket. 

Ill,  and  away  from  home  in  Gloucestershire,  he  writes 
the  following  testy  letter  to  the  boy  who  is  struggling  with 
many  problems  in  London  : 

My  dear  Bramwell  —  I  cannot  see  what  you  want  to 
bother  me  perpetually  about  Soho  and  Ridsdel  and  Cooper. 
Let  me  for  mercy's  sake  have  a  day's  rest.  I  won't  serve 
you  and  Railton  so  when  you  go  away !  Every  day  you  have 
bothered  me  with  Ridsdel.  Do  the  best  you  can  with  Soho 
and  all  else.  What  good  could  it  do  any  one  to  tell  me  Gipsies 
were  a  failure?  I  might  as  well  have  been  left  to  imagine  that 
all  was  going  well  as  have  my  evening  clouded  with  the  in- 

393 


394  i^HE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

formation.  Please  do,  do  let  me  alone.  Railton  says  you  have 
toothache.  I  am  very  sorry,  but  I  cannot  help  it.  Go  to  Ross! 
I  say  this  as  much  to  hinder  you  having  the  trouble  to  write. 
I  have  written  about  Cardiff.  If  you  think  Leeds  (30  miles 
further  away  than  this),  Birmingham  or  Norwich  better  open- 
ings than  Cardiff,  the  two  latter  not  big  openings  at  all,  I 
pity  you.  However,  for  once  I  have  decided.  I  do  not  see 
what  you  mean  about  Dowdle  ought  to  be  moved.  However, 
if  you  can  move  him  here  to  Cardiff  all  will  be  well.  (As 
to  vexing  Cory  I  do  not  know  what  you  mean  except  to  raise 
a  dust  in  your  own  eyes.     He  is  most  anxious  of  all.) 

But  these  growls  and  gruntings  are  only  occasional.  He 
is  obsessed  by  the  thought  of  his  work,  and  again  and 
again  throughout  his  correspondence  at  this  time  exclama- 
tions burst  from  his  heart  full  of  a  rough  passionate  desire 
for  the  conversion  of  the  world. 

He  writes  to  Mrs.  Billups :  "  Let  others  look  after  sick 
and  children;  you  follow  Jesus,  and  go  out  and  win  thou- 
sands of  souls  for  Him."  To  the  same  correspondent,  a 
little  later,  he  addresses  the  following  quaint  adjuration: 
"  Jesus  has  paid  for  you  to  travel  first-class  to  Heaven,  and 
have  a  first-class  mansion.  Take  it;  don't  be  put  off  with 
second-class !  "  Then  he  breaks  out,  concerning  a  reported 
scandal  in  the  religious  world : 

The  Baptist  papers  are  the  most  furious  —  one  of  them  has 
a  paper  headed  "  Collapse  of  the  Higher  Life  Movement." 
Cruel.  Cruel.  God  will  be  level  with  them.  I  will  never 
forgive  the  Baptists,  neither  in  this  world  nor  the  world  to 
come ! 

Vigorous  phrases  of  this  kind,  abundantly  justified  in 
most  cases  by  the  particular  circumstance,  appear  through- 
out his  correspondence;  but  his  "never,  never"  seldom 
lasted  for  a  whole  day ;  the  more  tremendous  the  explosion 
the  quicker  was  his  return  to  normal  business. 

Much  more  frequent  are  his  spiritual  exclamations,  torn 
from  the  inward  struggles  of  his  soul,  and  seeking  ex- 
pression in  language  sometimes  of  a  violent  and  sometimes 
of  a  very  crude,  almost  childish  character: 

God!  oh  to  compass  the  word  —  who  tries?  God,  Om- 
nipotent    Almighty  —  Omniscient  —  Everywhere.     And     oh, 


XXVI]  VARIOUS  LETTERS  395 

wonder  of  wonders,  jiiy  Lord,  and  my  God  —  say  it  —  venture 
out  on  to  the  deep  trackless  ocean  and  find  the  waves  as  firm 
to  tread  upon  as  the  rocks  of  Galilee.  Heed  not  storms  nor 
boisterous  billows.     Jesus  is  just  on  before.     Sing! 

Satan  rages.  Russel  w^as  locked  up  on  Saturday  night  — 
he  had  permission  to  stand  on  a  parson's  door-step,  the  police 
pulled  him  off  and  took  him  to  the  Police-Station.  This  morn- 
ing he  was  fined  is.  and  costs  8s.  6d.  which  with  a  guinea  to 
Solicitor  is  nothing  to  the  encouragement  to  our  enemies;  how- 
ever, we  shall  go  forward. 

A  little  later  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Billups  of  the  sickness  in 
his  home,  and  suddenly  breaks  away  from  his  news  to  preach 
a  sermon  on  the  text  of  domestic  calamities : 

.  .  .  Lucy  thrives  and  only  wants  to  get  away  for  her  sake 
and  ours,  and  then  in  due  course  and  after  due  cleansing  and 
disinfection  w^e  hope  once  more  to  get  home  again. 

Oh  to  get  HOME.  Home,  our  real  abiding  home.  But  we 
must  be  cured  and  disinfected,  there  must  be  no  seeds  of  con- 
tagion about  us.  We  cannot  be  allowed  to  go  in  there  until 
there  is  no  possibility  of  polluting  that  holy  place.  I  told  the 
sinners  yesterday  that  God  would  not  allow  them  to  go  into 
Paradise  as  they  were  —  they  had  spoiled  earth.  He  would 
not  allow  them  to  spoil  Paradise.  And  you  and  I  have  no 
desire  —  I  have  not  I  am  sure,  my  yearnings  are  far  stronger 
for  the  meetness  than  for  the  place  itself  —  I  love  holiness 
more  than  I  love  Heaven.  Do  you,  dear  friend?  The  inward 
heaven  is  the  more  precious  of  the  two  —  must  be.  And  the 
inward  will  ensure  the  outward.  Blessed  are  the  pure  in 
heart ;  they  shall  see  God. 

I  preached  my  first  sermon  from  "  I  shall  be  satisfied  when 
I  awake  in  Thy  likeness."  Oh  how  true.  Never  till  then  — 
never  till  then!     But  I  shall  be  then. 

In  May,  1876,  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Billups  and  makes  a  very 
interesting  announcement,  showing  that  even  in  those  days 
the  idea  of  an  army  was  in  his  mind : 

We  are  thinking  of  getting  a  "  Flag  "  and  have  thought  of 
crimson  ground  and  blue  border.  What  do  you  think?  The 
crimson  signifying  the  atonement  and  the  blue  purity. 

Later,  to  the  same  correspondent,  he  discusses  his  plan 
for  making  preachers  of  converted  sinners: 

T  don't  want  anybody  to  be  Mission  people  but  poor  sinners. 


396  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

We  can  make  "  dare  devils  "  of  them,  people  who  "  dare " 
public  opinion,  but  of  no  one  else. 

Occasionally  he  indulges  himself  in  a  rather  clumsy 
humour : 

Why  not  always  put  the  day  of  the  week  on  your  letters  — 
as  you  never  know  the  day  of  the  month.     It  is  true  a  penny 

almanac  would  tell  you  the  date,  but Well.     Stick  on 

the  day  of  the  week  and  I  shall  know  when  your  letters  are 
written. 

Mrs.  would  not  do  at  all,  at  all.  You  do  not  under- 
stand our  "sect."  Your  material  plan  of  things  does  not  de- 
termine the  action  of  men.  It  is  a  wife  he  wants  and  not  a 
motherly  body  to  take  care  of  his  house  and  family. 

When  one  of  the  family  is  stricken  down  with  small-pox, 
in  1876,  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Billups  releasing  that  good  lady 
from  her  promise  to  visit  him  on  his  death-bed  if  he  should 
contract  the  disfiguring  disease.  He  says  suddenly  in  one 
of  his  letters,  "  After  all  the  line  to  Heaven  is  the  best 
railway  of  all.  I  am  on  it.  Express  all  the  way."  He  is 
rather  amused  than  otherwise  by  the  effect  of  his  methods 
on  those  in  the  Mission  who  came  to  him  from  the  well- 
drilled  legions  of  orthodoxy.  "  We  have,  I  fancy,  disgusted 
a  goodly  number  of  our  respectable  people  with  the  '  vul- 
garity '  of  our  announcements  and  efforts."  To  the  end 
of  his  life  a  somewhat  dissonant  humour  sounds  through 
many  of  his  utterances,  as  if  he  were  ever  eager  to  find  re- 
lief from  the  tremendous  tension  of  his  serious  undertaking 
in  a  spirit  which  sprang,  apparently,  half  from  the  joy  of 
his  own  security  and  half  from  contempt  for  opposing 
orthodoxy  or  foolish  worldliness. 

The  letters  to  his  wife  at  this  time  are  full  of  the  same 
tenderness  and  warm-hearted  affection  as  marked  his  ear- 
liest correspondence  with  Catherine  Mumford : 

I  get  your  letters,  and  I  take  care  of  them.  I  know  where 
I  am  and  will  not  leave  a  line  of  yours  "  out." 

Katie  is  better  and  will  soon  be  all  right.  I  am  as  tender 
of  "her  as  you  could  wish.     She  eats  and  sleeps  and  seems  very 

happy.     Of  course  Mrs.  is  awfully  sour,  but  we  take  no 

notice  of  her.     All  else  are  very  pleasant.  ... 

Tell  Bramwell  I  won't  have  you  made  miserable  by  him 


XXVI]  VARIOUS  LETTERS  397 

[this  apparently  refers  to  the  son's  health].  He  must  have  a 
holiday.  Railton  will  be  up  on  Tuesday,  he  must  go  away 
at  once.  Where?  With  you  too!  You  must  come  to  me  or 
me  to  you.  I  should  arrange  to  visit  the  other  stations  here 
and  come  off  to  you  at  once  and  let  him  come  and  finish  up 
the  North  with  K.  but  for  my  promise  to  take  her  to  Edin- 
burgh. But  it  will  come  to  that.  He  can  do  with  her  as  well 
as  I  can.  Indeed  I  think  better.  He  would  have  plenty  of 
preaching.  .  .  . 

He  is  a  dear  darling  boy,  writes  me  beautiful  business 
letters.  What  am  I  to  do?  I  love  him  and  all  of  you  dearly. 
I  love  God  and  God  loves  me.  I  do  wish  he  would  alter  in 
these  little  things,  do  you  talk  to  him  ever?  .  .  . 

Send  to  Barnet.     We  shall  get  through.     It  may  do 

him  good.  I  am  not  near  so  ready  to  spend  money  on  him  as 
I  should  have  been  3  months  ago.  He  must  alter  or  he  will 
lose  my  love.     I  hate  selfish  lazy  people. 

I  am  in  a  corner,  having  had  all  sorts  of  interruptions.  I 
have  your  affectionate  letter.  I  do  indeed  reciprocate  all  you 
say.  I  love  you  better,  more  as  a  woman  would  wish  in  her 
soul  to  be  loved  than  I  did  when  at  Matlock.  I  have  more 
sense,  more  heart,  and  more  religion  than  I  had  then,  and  all 
I  have  I  lay  at  your  feet  and  as  much  on  your  shrine  as  ever 
I  did  in  my  life. 

I  have  been  during  our  late  separation  in  much  uncertainty 
as  to  where  you  were,  and  Willie  opens  my  letters,  and  I  can't 
write  as  freely,  and  many  things  have  been  on  my  heart  and 
held  me  down,  but  when  I  get  free  my  heart  comes  bounding 
off  to  my  first  love  as  much  and  far  more  than  when  it  seemed 
miles  between  Newington  Gate  and  Russell  Street. 

I  write  advisedly  and  with  deliberation.  .  .  .  When  can  you 
come?  Can  you  come  before  Monday  when  you  would  see 
Emma  and  the  chicks?  It  seems  a  long  time  to  wait  till  next 
week.  .  .  .  Come  you  must  and  shall  if  you  are  willing. 

.  .  .  Katie  too  is  much  better  than  for  18  months.  She 
says  if  she  had  been  cared  for  like  this  she  would  have  been 
strong  to-day,  but  Willie  worked  her  without  rhyme  or  reason! 
I  just  show  her  and  do  the  brunt  myself.  She  is  a  good 
fine  girl.     Bless  her. 

I  think  of  you  all  alone,  and  when  a  gleam  of  sunshine 
comes  into  my  heart  or  through  my  window  my  soul  turns  to 
you  a-t  once.  If  I  only  thought  you  would  be  happy  with  me 
it  would  make  me  glad  beyond  description;  but,  unfortunately, 
you  get  so  an.xious  about  me  when  there  really  is  no  occasion. 
I  am  wonderfully  better  again.  I  do  more  work,  and  do  it  far 
more  easily,  than  I  did  when  an  Evangelist  in  these  parts  22 
years  ago. 


398  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

In  the  following  letter  to  Mr.  Railton  he  shows  the  spirit 
in  which  he  is  meeting  opposition : 

My  dear  Lieut. —  Much  more  cheery  about  things  here. 
Of  course  I  am  the  personification  and  centre  of  all  that  which 
for  months  has  been  regarded  as  to  be  deplored  and  put  down. 
Personal  Pozver.  The  town,  too,  including  Mr.  Whitwell  and 
Co.,  assisted  by  Mr.  Lamb,  and  "  not  hindered "  by  Messrs. 
Allen  &  Clan,  have  found  us  out.  ''  No  popery  "  has  been  the 
cry,  and  lo  and  behold  the  pope  is  here,  all  unabashed,  nay  car- 
rying at  the  outset  all  before  him.  Hold,  not  so  fast,  the  tide 
abated,  but  the  flood  is  on  again  and  seems  likely  to  flow. 
Amen,  so  be  it  —  so  it  is! 

.  .  .  reported  700  saved  there.  Our  Wood  says  there  were 
but  ^'  s  persons."  Cheer  up,  Brother !  you  can  report  as  much 
as  that  any  day  of  your  darkest  days.  You  raised  that  even 
in  the  wilderness  —  I  mean  your  holidays! 

His  care  for  his  children  is  exemplified  in  the  letter  which 
follows,  addressed  to  the  daughter  who  acted  as  the  Little 
Mother  to  the  family,  and  who  was  to  meet  a  tragic  death 
in  America  twenty-six  years  later : 

My  dear  Emma  —  I  saw  your  letter  to  Mamma  last  week 
and  was  very  sorry  to  find  you  had  been  so  low-spirited.  I 
am  aware  that  your  task  is  tedious  and  sometimes  doubtless 
very  trying ;  but,  dear,  you  must  hold,  remembering  how  many 
there  are  who  would  give  all  they  have  to  possess  the  mercies 
and  comforts  you  enjoy.  You  have  had  a  nice  change  at 
Southend,  and  now  you  must  go  through  the  term,  and  then, 
God  willing,  at  Xmas  you  shall  have  another  holiday,  and  this 
time,  if  possible,  you  shall  go  away  from  the  children. 

Life  is  a  great  and  solemn  trust,  and  we  must  do  all  the 
good  we  can  and  so  earn  the  welcome  from  the  Saviour,  "  Well 
done !  "  Bless  you,  I  know  you  try  to  do  well,  and  He  knows 
it  too,  and  He  notes  it  and  He  will  reward  it. 

Never  forget  that,  although  I  don't  say  much  about  it,  I 
love  and  appreciate  all  your  care  for  the  dear  children  and  all 
your  anxiety  for  dear  Mamma. 

Domestic  matters  monopolize  the  following  letter  to  Mrs. 
Booth : 

Spent  the  night  at  Croydon.  Tea'd  with  children  and  took 
Emma  with  me.  Mrs.  F.  very  kind.  She  gave  me  the  en- 
closed envelope,  which  I  dared  to  open  and  to  extract  a  cheque 
for  £25  from  it ;  this  I  will,  unless  you  instruct  to  the  contrary. 


EMMA  BOOTH-TUCKER 
(Died  1903) 


XXVI]  VARIOUS  LETTERS  399 

put  in  the  bank.  It  will  keep  us  on  our  feet.  Praise  God. 
I  did  not  think  it  was  to  be  expected  just  yet.  She  said,  When 
you  are  short  for  the  Mission  cojne  to  me.  .  .  , 

I  have  your  two  letters  by  this  morning's  post.  They  per- 
plex me  much.  I  am  distressed  that  yoii  are  not  more  settled 
and  happy.  .  .  .  You  evidently  can't  settle  where  you  are  with- 
out me.  IVhy  not?  .  .  .  If  you  want  to  come  home  you 
must.  I  don't  care  what  I  do  or  where  I  go  or  what  happens 
now,  if  I  can  but  feel  that  you  are  happy.  ...  I  want  you  ten 
thousand  times  to  be  at  home  to-morrozv  and  only  counsel 
your  staying  away  for  yoiir  own  dear  sake. 

My  life  is  a  drag  without  you,  but  I  want  you  to  get  better. 

Don't  be  anxious.  Bramwell  is  permanently  better.  He 
has  given  up  heavy  suppers.  Sleeps  and  is  every  way  im- 
proved. ...  It  is  simple   folly  to  talk  about   Emma  coming 

—  she  has  only  had  a  month  or  6  weeks  with  the  children, 
and  to  go  up  —  I  am  amazed  at  you  —  and  the  expense  too 

—  pray  what  next? 

There  is  a  tragic  note,  spoilt  perhaps  by  a  morbid  irony 
scarcely  to  be  justified,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Mrs.  Booth 
in  March,  1878: 

Bramwell  started  a  letter  the  other  day  by  saying,  "  I  do 
miss  you  so  much.  I  hope  I  don't  love  you  too  much." 
Those  words  follow  me  up  and  down  like  heavenly  music. 
I  seldom  hear  of  anybody  loving  me.  I  don't  think  my  people 
do,  and  that  my  family  do  I  have  to  take  very  much  on  trust. 
So  to  hear  him  go  out  of  his  reticent  course  to  tell  me  so, 
comforted  me  much. 

Next  month  he  is  fighting  a  fierce  battle  in  Wiltshire  and 
writes  to  his  wife: 

Salisbury :  we  are  mobbed  and  hunted  almost  out  of  the 
town.  At  present  every  hall  and  room  is  closed  against  us. 
The  only  promise  is  an  old  coach  house,  4s.  per  week,  and  that 
not  certain !  Outdoors  the  Evangelists  have  to  get  into  houses 
to  escape  the  mob,  and  on  Sunday  they  had  to  close  the  meet- 
ings —  could  not  go  on.  Police  refuse  protection.  Never- 
theless there  is  a  good  Society.  A  lot  saved.  We  must  not 
give  up ;  we  will  not. 

Such  was  the  enthusiasm  of  his  followers  at  this  time, 
1878,  that  he  was  obliged  to  issue  a  command  of  the  fol- 
lowing character: 


400  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

General  Order  against  Starvation. 

"  The  General  has  learned  with  great  concern  that  several  of 
the  bravest  Officers  who  have  gone  to  the  towns  recently  en- 
tered, have  endured  the  greatest  privations,  going,  in  fact,  to 
the  very  brink  of  starvation  without  informing  him,  and  this, 
even  in  cases  where  they  had  actually  money  in  their  posses- 
sion, which  they  intended  to  use  for  the  payment  of  rent  or 
other  debts. 

"  He  wishes  every  one  to  understand  that  such  devotion, 
however  noble,  is  to  be  avoided  and  condemned,  especially  be- 
cause it  not  merely  exposes  the  strength  and  life  of  the 
Officers,  which  are  of  unspeakable  value,  to  great  risk,  but  is 
likely  to  bring  great  discredit  upon  the  army. 

"  It  was  never  intended  that  those  who  are  faithfully  and 
zealously  labouring  amidst  difficulties,  should  sufifer  want ;  but 
only  that  full  salary  should  not  be  drawn  and  unnecessary 
expenses  incurred,  and  that  no  station  incur  liability  beyond 
the  amount  of  its  ordinary  income  without  the  General's  con- 
sent. 

"  Henceforth  let  it  be  as  clearly  understood  that  ho  Officer 
is  to  allow  himself  to  sufifer  from  want  of  food,  clothing,  or 
fire,  without  giving  information  to  Headquarters  in  time  for 
it  to  be  prevented  if  possible,  and  that  any  one  who  knows  of 
an  Officer  being  in  destitute  circumstances  will  be  held  re- 
sponsible for  informing  Headquarters  on  the  subject;  and 
every  Officer  is  hereby  authorised  to  use,  in  case  of  need,  any 
money  that  may  be  in  his  possession,  rather  than  undergo  such 
sufferings,  obtaining  the  sanction  of  Headquarters  for  such 
use  of  rent,  or  other  money  in  hand  afterwards." 

He  seeks  recruits  for  his  great  army  from  among  his 
own  children,  and  presents  the  choice  to  one  of  his  daugh- 
ters, then  absent  from  home,  in  a  letter  which  reveals  a 
tenderness  and  a  reverence  in  his  attitude  to  the  maturing 

family. 

Sept.  2,rd,  '78. 

My  dear  Emma  —  I  have  thought  much  about  you  ever 
since  you  left,  and  hope  to  have  a  look  in  at  you  next  week. 

I  hope  you  are  looking  out  for  rooms  for  Mamma  and  Kate, 
who  are  expecting  to  come  to-morrow  or  next  day  or  the  day 
after  that. 

I  do  hope  you  are  enjoying  yourselves  and  getting  good 
every  way.  H does  not  write  me  as  I  wished.  I  com- 
menced one  letter  to  him  but  did  not  finish  it,  as  I  thought 
perhaps  it  would  spoil  his  enjoyment  at  the  start  He  ought 
always  to  put  a  letter  in  yours  if  only  as  an  educational  process 
for  him.  ... 


XXVI]  VARIOUS  LETTERS  401 

However,  Ma  will  look  him  up.  Ma  got  a  letter  from  you 
last  night  which  1  was  not  allowed  to  see  even,  much  less 
know  what  was  inside  it ;  except  a  hint  that  the  money  was 
going,  or  gone,  I  forget  which,  for  I  was  awfully  sleepy  and 
in  bed  when  she  read  it.  Well,  that  is  the  use  of  Papa  — 
money,  and  I  must  be  content ! 

K.  seems  better,  she  and  Ma  are  gone  to  the  doctor  to-day. 
K.  has  toothache. 

And  now,  my  dear  Emma,  I  have  often  thought  I  ought 
to  write  seriously  or  talk  to  you  some  of  my  thoughts,  but  I 
have  so  little  time,  and  I  hardly  know  how  to  enter  upon  the 
subject.  I  may  say,  however,  that  I  do  think  you  ought  now 
to  make  up  your  mind  about  the  Mission,  as  to  whether  you 
think  it  is  God's  plan  for  furthering  His  Kingdom  —  whether 
there  is  any  other  plan  which  more  fully  is  calculated  to  do 
this.  And  if  so,  whether  you  will  or  will  not  give  yourself 
to  it,  saying  this  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  this  work  shall 
be  my  work.  It  seems  to  me  that  is  for  you  to  settle  not 
what  yoti  will  be,  not  what  you  would  wish  to  be,  but  to  settle 
in  your  soul  what  system  seems  most  in  harmony  with  the 
will  of  God  and  most  likely  to  advance  the  interests  of  the 
Kingdom  of  God;  and  then  having  settled  that,  the  next  step 
seems  a  necessity,  which  is  to  give  yourself  to  that  system 
with  all  the  powers  and  influence  you  have. 

Never  mind  what  kind  of  a  position  you  occupy  in  it, 
whether  it  is  a  despised  and  hated  system  and  people,  or  not. 
If  to  you  it  is  the  Kingdom  of  God  then  its  people  should 
and  must  be  your  people. 

Now  I  don't  say  choose  your  father's  people.  You  have 
judgment  and  the  Bible,  and  I  believe  you  have  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Judge  yourself.  But  I  do  say  that  if  you  believe 
that  there  is  no  method  of  teaching  and  labour  and  doctrine 
that  seems  so  well  and  so  much  calculated  to  advance  Christ's 
Kingdom,  that  the  time  has  come  in  which  you  ought  to  cast 
in  your  lot  with  us,  for  better  or  for  worse,  and  to  make  us 
feel  that  you  are  with  us  for  better  or  worse,  for  richer  or 
poorer,  for  ever  and  ever. 

If  so,  then  this  it  seems  to  me  meets  all  or  at  least  a  large 
part  of  the  controversies  that  trouble  you.  If  the  Mission 
is  embraced  as  the  Kingdom  of  God,  if  you  voluntarily  choose 
and  enlist  in  this  army,  then  you  must  subject  yourself  to  it 
and  live  or  die  or  marry  or  be  single  or  be  poor  or  rich  or 
high  or  low  for  its  advancement. 

That  is  the  way,  as  I  understand  it.  that  the  early  Christians 
acted,  and  in  that  way  Christianity  was  spread  over  the  globe. 

At  present  I  feel  as  though  you  were  outside  us,  looking  on, 
uncertain  how  to  bestow  yourself,  and  looking  about  how 
next  to  settle  and  promote  your  own  happiness  and  wellbeing. 


402     THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap.xxvi] 

My  dear  Emma,  give  yourself  to  Christ ;  that  is,  give  yourself 
to  the  kind  of  self-sacrificing  soul-saving  life  He  lived.  You 
know  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  though  He  was 
rich  yet  for  our  sake  He  became  poor,  that  we  through  His 
poverty  might  become  rich. 

Let  us  do  the  same  thing. 

I  believe  you  have  God,  and  I  believe  you  do  indeed  want 
to  be  right  and  to  please  Him.  Amen !  let  it  be  so.  I  don't 
want  you  to  bother  to  answer  this.  We  will  talk  it  over  when 
we  meet. 

May  you  have  health  and  peace  and  all  needed  blessing. 

Love  to  all  my  darlings.  I  will  send  you  a  hamper  of  good 
things  when  Ma  comes. —  Your  afTecte.  father, 

William  Booth. 

But  in  November  of  the  same  year,  from  the  town  of 
Sheffield,  he  administers  a  sharp  reproof  to  his  two  dutiful 
sons : 

My  dear  Boys  —  I  have  your  wire.  I  am  obliged  by  your 
counsel  and  I  am  never  above  being  advised ;  but  indeed  what 
is  the  good  of  saying  what  would  be  patent  to  a  child,  for 
really  I  am  able  or  ought  to  be  able  to  form  some  sort  of  a 
judgment  on  matters  when  I  have  the  facts.  I  am  hardly 
likely  to  take  a  course  unless  inevitable  that  will  upset 'Leices- 
ter, and  I  must  say  that  I  cannot  think  the  letter  of  

and justified  the  alarming  telegrams  sent  to  Middlesboro' 

last  night.  .  .  .  Do  let  us  take  things  a  bit  calmly.  We  are 
not  in  such  a  dreadful  hurry  after  all.  li  I  were  to  come 
here  with  a  sprained  ankle  with  which  any  sensible  person 
would  be  in  bed  and  have  a  doctor,  only  to  see  these  girls  who 
simply  wrote  what  and  all  they  felt,  it  would  have  been  a  waste 
of  time. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

THE  REV.  WILLIAM  BOOTH  BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE 
SALVATION    ARMY 

1878-1879 

The  August  number  of  The  Christian  Mission  Magazine 
in  1878  ends  with  the  announcement  of  a  "  War  Con- 
gress." The  September  number  opens  with  the  statement, 
"  The  Christian  Mission  has  met  in  Congress  to  make 
War."  In  the  announcement  William  Booth  is  described  as 
"  Mr.  Booth  "  and  "  The  Rev.  W.  Booth."  The  first  men- 
tion of  him  in  the  account  of  the  War  Congress  hails  him 
as  "  The  General." 

Although  it  still  called  itself  the  Christian  Mission,  this 
enthusiastic  company  of  men  and  women  was  now,  in  spirit 
and  in  discipline,  rapidly  becoming  an  army.  The  account 
of  the  August  Congress  tells  us  that  the  Mission  "  has 
organized  a  Salvation  Army  to  carry  the  Blood  of  Christ 
and  the  Fire  of  the  Holy  Ghost  into  every  corner  of  the 
world."  That,  I  believe,  is  the  first  mention  of  the  term 
Salvation  Army.  We  are  also  told  that,  "  The  Christian 
Mission  Congress  has  prepared  for  a  war  that  shall  bring 
true  peace  into  the  hearts  and  homes  of  the  vilest  and 
roughest  of  the  people,  and  shall  shake  the  Kingdom  of 
the  Devil  everywhere."  Furthermore,  many  of  the  evan- 
gelists—  forbidden  by  the  rules  of  the  Mission  to  style 
themselves  "Reverend" — were  now  known,  in  all  parts 
of  the  country,  as  "  Captain."  The  title  is  popular  and 
friendly  in  England,  and  commended  itself  to  William 
Booth;  he  would  point  out  that  everybody  understood  it. 
everybody  knew  that  there  must  be  a  captain  of  a  cricket 
club,  a  football  club,  a  barge,  or  a  steamer;  he  allowed  his 
evangelists  to  be  called  Captains  while  he  himself  remained 
the  solitary  and  supreme  Reverend.  He  wore  a  tall  hat, 
but  the  white  choker  was  now  no  more! 

His  title,  however,  was  in  a  state  of  transition.  He  was 
now  "  The  Rev.  William  Booth,  General  Superintendent  of 

403 


404  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

the  Christian  Mission."  Miss  Short  has  already  told  us 
that  in  the  family  circle  he  was  called  "  The  General  "  quite 
in  the  early  days  of  the  Christian  Mission,  rather  as  a  genial 
tribute  to  his  commanding  and  autocratic  temper,  however, 
than  with  any  reference  to  the  organization  of  the  Mission. 
But  now  the  evangelists  began  to  speak  of  him  among 
themselves  as  "  The  General,"  meaning  by  that  title  that  he 
was  the  General  Superintendent,  not  in  any  way  claim- 
ing for  him  a  military  rank. 

In  the  year  1877,  when  Europe  was  watching  the  struggle 
between  Russia  and  Turkey,  one  of  William  Booth's  fol- 
lowers who  was  conducting  a  mission  in  Whitby  exhibited 
some  bills  with  the  heading  "War!  War!  War!"  and 
called  for  "  Two  thousand  men,  women,  and  children  "  to 
join  "  the  Forces  of  the  Hallelujah  Army."  This  evan- 
gelist, who  became  Commissioner  Cadman  in  the  Salvation 
Army,  relates  that  when  William  Booth  arrived  in  the  town, 
he  presented  his  leader  not  as  "  The  Rev.  William  Booth  " 
but  as  "The  General  of  the  Hallelujah  Army."  This, 
Commissioner  Cadman  says,  was  "  the  first  time  that  the 
title  of  General  was  given  to  Mr.  Booth,  and  Whitby  was  the 
town  of  England  where  the  organization  was  first  described 
as  an  Army." 

Bramwell  Booth  remembers  the  incident  which  defi- 
nitely changed  the  name  of  the  Christian  Mission.  He 
and  Mr.  Railton  were  summoned  early  one  morning  to 
William  Booth's  bedroom  to  compare  notes  and  to  receive 
instructions  for  the  day's  work.  Mr.  Railton  sat  at  a  table, 
writing;  Mr.  Bramwell  Booth  occupied  a  chair  at  his  side; 
William  Booth,  in  a  long  yellow  dressing-gown  and  felt 
slippers,  was  walking  up  and  down,  dictating  his  instruc- 
tions. At  that  time  the  Volunteer  Movement  was  estab- 
lished, and  was  receiving  derisive  treatment  at  the  hands  of 
the  public.  The  phrase  occurred  in  the  article  which  Mr. 
Railton  was  writing,  "  We  are  a  volunteer  army  " ;  and 
when  he  came  to  read  this  out,  young  Bramwell  Booth 
leaned  back  in  his  chair,  glanced  over  his  shoulder  at  the 
perambulating  General  Superintendent,  and  exclaimed: 
"Volunteer!  Here,  I'm  not  a  volunteer.  I'm  a  regular 
or  nothing !  "     William  Booth,  who  had  stopped  walking  at 


Principal 

Stations 

WUitechapel 

Limehoaso 

Bethnal  Green 

Barking 

Hackney 

Poplar 

Hammersmith 

Hastiags 

Chatham 

Salisbary 

Portsmouth 

Cardiff 

Newport 

Merthyr-Tydvil 

QowlaiB 

Aberdare 

Wellingboro 

leicester 

Coventry 

Wolverhampton 

Sheffield 

Rotherham 

Barnsley 

Leeds 

Bradford 

Wnitby 

Stockton  ouTeec 

Middle6b(rongh 

East  Hartlepool 

Weit  Hartlepool 

Speunymoor 

Bishop  Auckland 

Sunderland 

South  Shields 

North  Shields 

Jarrow 

Bolton 

Blackburn 

Burnley 

Acciingtou 

Rochdale 

Lancaster 

Kendal 

Manchester 

Crewe 

Dudley 

Plymouth 


The    Salvation    army. 


f    8(jn'$li;iii    PQi$siaii. 


HiAI.    gr.MillJKS.   OiKICI-.S    >i    lioDK    Sl'URUS, 
27.-.    \Sl1ITF.illAIKC.     K(I,M>,    P.. 


^^^ 


FACSIMILE  OF  OFFICIAL  NOTE  HEADING  WITH  WILLIAM 
BOOTH'S  CRITICISM  (1878) 


XXVII]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      405 

this  interruption,  studied  his  son  for  a  moment,  and  then 
coming  to  the  table,  leaned  over  Mr.  Railton's  shoulder,  took 
the  pen  from  his  hand,  scratched  out  the  word  "  Volunteer," 
and  wrote  in  its  place  the  word  "  Salvation." 

"  The  effect,"  says  Mr.  Bramwell  Booth,  "  of  that  one 
word  upon  Railton  and  me  was  really  quite  extraordinary. 
We  both  sprang  from  our  chairs.  I  remember  that  I  ex- 
claimed, *  Thank  God  for  that ! '  And  Railton  was  equally 
enthusiastic." 

This  decision  really  marked  the  beginning  of  that  policy 
which  was  to  make  the  Salvation  Army  a  world-wide  in- 
fluence. The  old  question  of  Hmiting  or  narrowing  its 
message  in  any  way  was  now  settled  for  ever.  The  change 
of  name  meant  an  actual  warfare  upon  sin  and  apathy,  it 
meant  a  forward  movement,  it  was  a  definite  call  to  arms. 
Even  if  the  Mission  had  retained  its  name,  that  forward 
movement  would  certainly  have  been  made,  for  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  Mission  was  now  hot  for  the  work  of  widening 
its  influence;  but  it  is  evident  that  the  change  in  the  name 
hastened  the  forward  movement,  gave  it  a  violent  impulse, 
and  was  responsible  for  many  of  those  changes  in  method 
which  immediately  attracted  the  public  attention. 

The  adoption  of  a  uniform  almost  synchronized  with  the 
change  of  name  —  but  at  first  it  was  an  optional  matter, 
left  entirely  to  the  decision  of  individuals.  A  few  young 
Officers  immediately  donned  the  red  jersey;  but  the  women, 
on  the  whole,  were  decidedly  against  a  uniform.  Neither 
William  Booth  nor  Bramwell  Booth  made  any  change  in 
their  dress  for  some  time. 

As  will  be  seen  from  the  following  articles  written  by  the 
General,  as  we  may  now  call  him,  William  Booth  himself 
saw  little  significance  in  the  change  of  name.  He  announces 
no  new  policy ;  he  alters  no  single  rule ;  he  calls  for  no  new 
sacrifice.  And  yet  one  can  hardly  read  this  passionate  ad- 
dress without  feeling  that  he  was  at  heart  conscious  of  fresh 
enthusiasms  and  was  moved  by  a  new  energy  of  spiritual 
aggression. 

This  article  appears  in  the  January  number  of  the  Mis- 
sion's Magazine,  now  called  The  Sah'ationist.  It  is  entitled 
"  Our  New  Name,"  and  proceeds  as  follows: 


4o6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Only  the  name  —  the  same  old  friend,  neither  altered  in 
dress  or  person,  bringing  the  same  message  at  the  same  in- 
tervals —  only  a  more  expressive  appellation  and  a  more  de- 
scriptive one,  for  in  deed  and  truth  has  not  our  paper  always 
been  an  exponent,  advocate,  and  record  of  Salvation? 

We  are  a  Salvation  people  —  this  is  our  specialty  —  getting 
saved  and  keeping  saved,  and  then  getting  somebody  else 
saved,  and  then  getting  saved  ourselves  more  and  more,  until 
full  salvation  on  earth  makes  the  heaven  within,  which  is 
finally  perfected  by  the  full  salvation  without,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  River. 

We  are  not  the  only  salvation  people  in  the  world.  What 
a  pity  it  would  be  if  we  were!  There  must  be  many  more, 
both  nigh  at  hand  and  far  away,  people  who  believe,  as  we 
believe,  in  the  damnation  of  Hell  and  the  peril  which  unsaved 
men  are  hourly  in  of  falling  into  it,  and  of  the  opportunity 
God  gives  of  deliverance;  and  who,  therefore,  go  about  night 
and  day,  not  necessarily  in  the  way  we  do,  but  still  they  go 
about  in  season  and  out  of  season,  giving  men  little  rest  be- 
cause they  won't  flee  from  the  wrath  to  come,  and  who,  when 
they  do  get  a  poor  sinner  saved,  make  great  glee  and  rejoicing 
over  him,  and  make  him  a  Salvationist  like  themselves.  Oh 
yes,  there  are  other  fools  and  madmen  in  the  world  besides 
us,  and  in  this  we  rejoice,  wish  them  God  speed  with  all  our 
hearts,  but  we  rejoice  also  that  we  are  Salvationists  our- 
selves. 
y  We  believe  in  Salvation. —  We  believe  in  the  old-fash- 

ioned salvation.  We  have  not  developed  and  improved  into 
Universalism,  Unitarianism,  or  Nothingarianism,  or  any  other 
form  of  infidelity,  and  we  don't  expect  to.  Ours  is  just  the 
same  salvation  taught  in  the  Bible,  proclaimed  by  Prophets 
and  Apostles,  preached  by  Luther  and  Wesley  and  Whitefield, 
sealed  by  the  blood  of  martyrs  —  the  very  same  salvation 
which  was  purchased  by  the  sufferings  and  agony  and  Blood 
of  the  Son  of  God. 

We  believe  the  world  needs  it;  this  and  this  alone  will  set 
the  world  right.  We  want  no  other  nostrum  —  nothing  new. 
We  are  on  the  track  of  the  old  Apostles.  You  don't  need  to 
mix  up  any  other  ingredients  with  the  heavenly  remedy. 
Wound  and  kill  with  the  old  sword,  and  pour  in  the  old 
balsam  and  you  will  see  the  old  result  —  Salvation.  The 
world  needs  it.  The  worst  man  that  ever  walked  will  go  to 
Heaven  if  he  obtains  it,  and  the  best  man  that  ever  lived  will 
go  to  Hell  if  he  misses  it.     Oh,  publish  it  abroad ! 

There  is  a  Hell !  A  Hell  as  dark  and  terrible  as  is  the 
description  given  of  it  by  the  lips  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Truth- 
ful. And  into  that  Hell  men  are  departing  hour  by  hour. 
While  we  write  men  are  going  away  into  everlasting  punish- 


XXVII]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      407 

ment.  While  we  eat  and  drink,  and  sleep  and  work,  and  rest, 
men  are  going  where  the  worm  dieth  not,  and  where  the  fire 
is  not  quenched.  Can  anything  be  done?  Can  they  be 
stopped?  Can  drunkards,  harlots,  thieves,  the  outcasts  of  the 
Church  and  of  society,  be  saved?  In  theory  many  will  an- 
swer, "  Yes,"  but  in  experience  they  must  confess  they  have 
no  knowledge  of  such  things. 

Look  again,  perhaps  the  most  appalling  aspect  of  mankind 
is  its  bondage.  How  devils  and  devilish  habits  rule  it,  and 
oh,  what  an  iron  yoke.  Ask  the  drunkards,  gamblers,  thieves, 
harlots,  money-getters,  pleasure  seekers.  Ask  them  one  and 
all.  Ask  the  question  "  Can  the  power  of  these  habits  be 
broken?  Can  these  fiends  be  expelled?  Can  those  do  good 
who  have  been  accustomed  all  their  lives  to  do  evil  ?  Speak  !  " 
Press  your  question  — "  Can  these  poor  creatures,  captives,  be 
delivered  ?  Saved  from  sinning,  saved  into  holy  living,  and 
triumphant  dying?  Saved  now?"  The  desponding  answer 
will  be  "  Impossible."  Ask  multitudes  of  professing  Chris- 
tians and  they  will  fear  it  is  impossible.  Ask  the  Salvation- 
ist, and  the  answer  will  be  both  from  theory  and  experience, 
that  the  vilest  and  worst  can  be  saved  to  the  uttermost,  for  all 
things  are  possible  to  him  that  believeth. 

What  is  the  use  of  a  doctor  who  cannot  cure,  a  life-boat  that 
cannot  reach  and  rescue,  an  overseer  who  cannot  relieve? 
And  what  would  be  the  value  of  a  Saviour  who  was  not  good 
and  gracious,  and  strong  enough  to  save  the  vilest  and  worst, 
and  to  save  him  as  far  as  he  needs?  But  our  Redeemer  is 
mighty  to  save.  Hold  the  standard  high.  Let  us  tell  the 
world  of  the  Blood  and  Fire. 

We  have  S.'VLVAtion. —  This  paper  is  the  mouthpiece  of  a 
people  who  boldly  say  so.  In  this  respect,  with  us  the  trumpet 
gives  no  uncertain  sound.  Many  there  are  who  postpone  all 
the  certain,  enjoyable  realisable  part  of  religion  to  the  next 
state  —  to  the  coming  hereafter.  But  we  believe  in  salva- 
tion here  and  now ;  we  believe  in  feeling,  knowing,  and  par- 
taking here  on  earth  of  the  leaves  of  the  tree  of  life,  which 
are  for  the  healing  of  the  nations.  Drinking  of  the  river  of 
the  water  of  life  which  flows  from  the  throne  of  God.  Eat- 
ing the  flesh,  and  drinking  the  blood  of  the  Son  of  God,  and 
being  healed,  and  changed  and  blessed,  and  filled  with  the 
glory  of  God,  and  the  peace  and  purity  and  power  of  salva- 
tion. We  want  it  noiv.  And  we  want  to  know  we  have  it, 
while  we  struggle  and  suffer  and  fight,  and  sacrifice,  and  die ; 
we  want  the  comforting,  sustaining,  girdling,  upholding  arms 
of  Jehovah  consciously  around  us,  bearing  us  up.  and  making 
us  feel  glad  and  strong  in  the  strength  of  the  mighty  God  of 
Jacob.  We  need  it.  and  we  have  it.  There  arc  think-so 
Christians,  and  there  are  hope-so  Christians,  and  there  are 


4o8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

know-so  Christians;  thank  God  we  belong  to  the  know-so 
people  —  we  know  we  are  saved.  And  why  not  ?  Enoch  had 
the  testimony  that  he  pleased  God.  Job  knew  that  his  Re- 
deemer lived.  John  knew  that  he  had  passed  from  death  into 
life.  Paul  knew  that  when  his  earthly  house  was  destroyed 
he  had  a  building  in  the  heavens.  And  we  know  in  whom 
we  have  believed,  and  the  Spirit  answers  to  our  faith,  and 
testifies  in  our  hearts  that  we  are  the  children  of  God. 

My  brethren,  if  you  have  salvation  you  are  sure  of  it.  Not 
because  at  the  corner  of  the  street  or  from  the  stage  of  the 
theatre  you  have  heard  it  preached.  Not  because  you  have 
read  with  your  eyes,  or  heard  read  by  others  in  that  wonder- 
ful Book,  the  wonderful  story  of  the  love  of  God  to  you. 
Not  because  you  have  seen  with  your  eyes  wonderful  trans- 
formations of  character  wrought  by  the  power  of  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  changes  as  marvellous,  as  miraculous,  as  divine,  as  any 
that  ever  took  place  in  Apostolic  or  any  other  days. 

These  things  may  have  led  up  to  it.  But  these  things,  won- 
derful as  they  may  be,  have  not  power  to  make  you  sure  of 
your  lot  and  part  in  the  matter  of  salvation.  Flesh  and  blood 
has  not  revealed  this  to  you,  but  God  Himself,  by  His  Spirit, 
has  made  this  known. 

Our  Work  is  Salvation. —  We  believe  in  salvation,  and  we 
have  salvation.  We  are  not  mere  sentimentalists  or  theory 
people ;  we  publish  what  we  have  heard  and  seen  and  handled 
and  experienced  of  the  word  of  life  and  the  power  of  God. 
We  aim  at  salvation.  We  want  this  and  nothing  short  of 
this,  and  we  want  this  right  off.  My  brethren,  my  comrades, 
soul  saving  is  our  avocation,  the  great  purpose  of  our  lives. 
Let  us  seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God,  let  us  be  Salvation- 
ists indeed. 

God  being  our  helper,  this  paper  shall  answer  to  its  name, 
early  and  late,  whether  men  are  pleased  or  angry,  whether 
they  will  read  and  bless,  or  reject  and  curse,  it  shall  know 
no  purpose  short  of  the  rescue  of  a  dying  world,  and  no 
meaner  message  than  the  announcement  of  a  present,  free,  and 
full  Salvation. 

And,  my  brethren,  my  comrades,  you  too  bear  a  name,  an 
honoured,  sacred  name,  and  you  must  answer  in  purpose  and 
character  to  the  name  of  the  great  Salvationist. 

Look  at  this.  Clear  your  vision.  Halt,  stand  still  as  the 
new  year  draws  nigh,  and  afresh  and  more  fully  apprehend  and 
comprehend  your  calling.  You  are  to  be  a  worker  together 
with  God  for  the  salvation  of  your  fellow-men.  Stop  a  bit. 
Don't  hurry  away.  What  is  the  business  of  your  life?  Not 
merely  to  save  your  soul  —  win  the  bread  that  perisheth  not 
and  make  yourself  meet  for  Paradise?  If  it  was  so,  if  this 
were  all,  would  it  not  be  an  ignoble  and  selfish  lot  for  which 


xxvii]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      409 

to  toil  and  suffer,  and  pray  and  die,  and  would  it  not  be  as 
unlike  the  Master's  as  could  well  be  conceived  of?  No,  you 
are  to  be  a  redeemer,  a  saviour,  a  copy  of  Jesus  Christ  Him- 
self. So  wake  up  all  the  powers  of  your  being,  my  brothers, 
and  consecrate  every  awakened  power  to  the  great  end  of  sav- 
ing them.     Be  a  Salvationist. 

Rescue  the  perishing.  There  are  all  around  you  every- 
where, crowds  upon  crowds,  multitudes.  Be  skilful.  Im- 
prove yourself.     Study  your  business. 

Be  self-sacrificing.  Remember  the  Master.  What  you  lose 
for  His  sake,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  poor  souls  for  whom  He 
died,  you  shall  find  again.  Stick  to  it.  Having  put  your  hand 
to  the  salvation  plough  don't  look  behind  you. 

Oh,  for  a  brave  year.  We  shall  have  one,  and  you  will  fight 
and  drive  the  foe,  and  rescue  the  prey,  and  we  will  enter  the 
record  of  multitudes  rescued  and  saved  and  sanctified  and  safe 
landed  in  Glory  in  the  pages  of  The  Salvationist. 

He  is  far  more  conscious  of  the  future  in  front  of  him 
when  he  sits  dow^n,  only  a  few  weeks  later,  to  issue  his 
instructions  to  his  Soldiers.  We  think  it  may  be  said  that 
from  this  moment  William  Booth  cherished  an  ambition  in 
his  soul,  which,  in  spite  of  his  extraordinary  success  and 
the  world-wide  affection  felt  for  his  person  and  his  work, 
was  to  distress  him  and  yet  inspire  him  towards  the  end 
of  his  life  because  of  its  delayed  but  ever  possible  fulfil- 
ment. But  of  this  very  interesting  matter  we  shall  speak 
more  fully  in  our  closing  chapters.  It  is  plain  in  the  follow- 
ing article  that  he  is  roused  to  enthusiasm,  that  he  sees  be- 
fore him  a  host  springing  up  to  overthrow  the  works  of 
the  Devil,  and  that  he  definitely  sets  before  his  Soldiers,  as 
their  supreme  objective,  "  The  subjugation  and  conquest  of 
the  world." 

The  article  is  called  "  The  Salvation  Army.  By  the 
General,"  and  appears  in  the  February  number  of  The 
Salvationist: 

What  a  strange  name!  What  does  it  mean?  Just  what  it 
says  —  a  number  of  people  joined  together  after  the  fashion 
of  an  army ;  and  therefore  it  is  an  army,  and  an  army  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  Salvation  through  the  land;  neither  more 
nor  less  than  that.  If  it  be  wise  and  lawful  and  desirable  for 
men  to  be  banded  together  and  organized  after  the  best  method 
])ossible  to  liberate  an  enslaved  nation,  establish  it  in  liberty, 
and  overcome  its  foes,  then  surely  it  must  be  wise  and  law- 


4IO  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

ful  and  desirable  for  the  people  of  God  to  join  themselves  to- 
gether after  the  fashion  most  effective  and  forcible  to  liberate 
a  captive  world  and  to  overcome  the  enemies  of  God  and 
man. 

When  Jehovah  finished  the  work  of  creation,  He  turned 
from  the  new  earth  to  the  new  Adam,  and  gave  him  the  com- 
mission to  multiply  and  increase  and  subdue  and  govern  it, 
so  that  it  should  become  a  happy  home  for  him  and  his 
posterity,  and  bring  honour  and  glory  to  its  Creator.  Adam 
failed  in  his  mission,  and  instead  of  Adam  subduing  the  earth, 
the  earth  subdued  Adam,  and  he  and  all  his  family  went  off 
into  black  and  diabolical  rebellion.  But  God  still  claimed  His 
own,  and  a  second  time  appeared,  this  time  to  redeem  by  sacri- 
fice the  world  He  had  created ;  and  when  He  had  finished  the 
work.  He  turned  to  His  disciples,  the  spiritual  Adams,  and 
gave  them  a  commission  similar  to  that  given  to  the  first 
Adam,  to  go  and  disciple  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
(Matthew  xxviii.  19,  see  margin). 

Again  it  is  overcome,  conquer,  subdue,  not  merely  teach,  but 
persuade,  compel  all  nations,  that  is,  all  men,  to  become  the 
disciples  of  the  Son  of  God. 

So  at  least  it  is  understood  by  the  Salvation  Army.  This 
is  the  idea  which  originated  and  developed  and  fashioned  it  in 
the  past,  and  which  dominates  and  propels  it  to-day.  The 
world,  this  very  world,  including  this  very  England,  which 
never  ceases  boasting  of  its  freedom,  is  sold  under  sin,  held  in 
slavery  by  Satan,  who  has  usurped  the  place  and  power  and 
revenues  of  Jehovah,  and  who  is  indeed  its  Lord  and  Master, 
and  to  deliver  it  and  to  fulfil  to  the  very  letter  the  Master's  com- 
mand, an  army  of  deliverance,  of  redemption,  of  emancipation 
is  wanted.  In  the  name  of  the  great  Three  One  the  standard 
has  been  raised,  recruits  are  flowing  in.  Drilling,  skirmish- 
ing, fighting,  advancing,  are  going  on.  Some  territory  has 
been  won,  some  captives  have  been  liberated,  some  shouts  of 
victory  have  been  raised,  together  with  plenty  of  misfortunes 
and  losses  and  disasters  and  mistakes,  and  all  of  that  which 
might  naturally  have  been  expected  in  such  a  war,  unless  men 
had  suddenly  mended  of  their  depravity,  and  devils  had 
miraculously  ceased  to  be  devils ;  but  with  it  all  there  has 
been  growth  and  increase  continually.  Every  day  it  is  becom- 
ing more  fierce  and  determined  and  courageous  and  confident, 
and  every  day  more  and  more  a  Salvation  Army. 

Does  all  this  sound  strange,  my  brother  —  not  sacred,  not 
ecclesiastical,  not  according  to  the  traditions  of  the  elders, 
and  after  the  pattern  of  existing  things  and  institutions?  Is 
it  something  new?     It  may  be  so,  and  yet  it  may  be  none  the 


xxvii]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      411 

less  true  and  scriptural,  and  none  the  less  of  divine  origin 
and  made  after  some  heavenly  pattern  for  all  that. 

Let  us  look  at  it.  What  is  this  work  we  have  in  hand? 
To  subdue  a  rebellious  world  to  God.  And  what  is  the  ques- 
tion to  which  many  anxiously  ask  an  answer?  How  is  it 
most  likely  to  be  accomplished?  Now,  there  are  some  things 
on  which  we  may  reckon  all  to  be  agreed : 

1.  That  if  ever  the  world,  or  any  part  of  it  is  subdued,  it 
will  be  by  the  instrumentality  of  men. 

2.  By  holy  men,  saved,  spiritual,  divine  men. 

3.  By  men  using  substantially  the  same  means  as  were  used 
by  the  first  Apostles,  that  is,  preaching,  praying,  believing,  etc. 

4.  That  all  that  is  effected  will  be  by  the  co-operation  and 
power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  given  through  and  because  of  the 
atonement  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 

Now  on  these  lines  how  could  a  number  of  the  Lord's 
disciples  conduct  themselves  in  order  the  most  effectually  to 
succeed  in  the  direction  of  disciplining  all  nations,  subduing 
the  world  to  God? 

Supposing  5,000  godly  men  and  women  of  varying  ages 
and  conditions  presented  themselves  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral 
to-morrow,  saying:  "We  are  so  deeply  impressed  with  the 
awful  spiritual  condition  and  peril  of  the  world  that  we  can- 
not rest ;  the  word  of  the  Lord  is  as  a  fire  in  our  bones,  and  the 
love  of  souls  is  such  a  constraining  power  in  our  hearts  that 
it  will  not  let  us  remain  idle,  we  want  to  join  in  a  holy  crusade 
for  the  redemption  of  mankind.  Take  us  and  all  we  have 
and  use  us  in  the  way  most  likely  to  accomplish  this  end." 
What  in  such  a  case  could  best  be  done?  How  could  these 
5,000  burning  hearts  be  used  with  the  greatest  force  and  likeli- 
hood of  success?  Let  us  see.  It  seems  to  us  that  substan- 
tially something  like  the  following  answer  must  be  given. 

L  The  5,000  must  work  in  combination,  and  that  the  most 
complete  and  perfect  possible.  To  separate  and  scatter  them, 
leaving  them  to  work  out  varying  plans,  would  surely  be  un- 
wise. No,  no.  Two  working  in  combination  will  accomplish 
more  than  two  in  separation.  Let  them  be  one  and  the  same 
force,  though  acting  in  various  divisions  and  scattered  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth.  Mould  and  weld  and  keep  them  together. 
Let  them  be  an  army,  and  make  them  feel  that  they  are  work- 
ing out  one  plan.  Shoulder  to  shoulder.  Brethren,  sisters, 
comrades,  division  is  weakness,  unity  is  strength.     Why? 

I.  Combination  gives  the  strength  ivliich  flozvs  from  sym- 
pathy. The  knowledge  that  if  one  is  sore  pressed,  wounded,  a 
thousand  hearts  feel  with  him,  that  if  he  falls  they  will  shout 
victory  o'er  his  grave,  follow  him  in  imagination  to  "  the  river," 
and  anticipate  meeting  him  again  before  the  Throne,  will  be 


412  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

stimulus  unutterable,  will  make  him  willing  to  face  enemies, 
loss,  death,  and  devils. 

2.  Combination  gives  confidence.  There  is  wonderful  power 
in  the  consciousness  that  a  multitude  are  shouldering  the  same 
weapons,  engaged  in  the  same  conflict,  marching  to  the  same 
music,  under  the  same  standard,  for  the  destruction  of  the 
common  foe.  Confidence  makes  men  into  heroes.  Without 
knowledge  there  will  be  no  confidence,  and  without  combina- 
tion there  will  be  no  knowledge.  Hold  together,  close  together, 
and  there  will  be  giants  again  even  in  our  own  days. 

3.  Combination  gives  the  strength  which  comes  from 
mutual  help.  With  a  system  of  combination  which  is  a  reality 
and  not  merely  a  name,  the  strong  can  bear  the  infirmities  of 
the  weak.  In  a  great  real  war,  no  matter  how  carefully  the 
forces  are  distributed,  there  will  be  weak  places  that  will  need 
strengthening  when  the  conflict  rages  all  along  the  line.  There 
will  be  positions  against  which  the  enemy  will  hurl  his  most 
powerful  battalions,  which  positions  must  be  reinforced  or  all 
will  be  lost.  How  glorious  for  the  fresh  troops  to  come  pour- 
ing in.  What  would  have  become  of  Lucknow  had  there  been 
no  Havelock,  and  but  for  Blucher,  England  would  never  have 
been  so  proud  to  tell  the  story  of  Waterloo. 

We  must  hold  the  5,000  together.  We  know  not  how  the 
battle  will  go,  and  no  wing  or  detachments  must  be  without  its 
supports,  and  all  must  be  arranged  that  the  power  and  force  of 
the  whole  can  be  directed  to  strengthen  and  sustain  the  weak- 
est part. 

4.  Combination  gives  pozvcr  which  comes  from  example. 
Man  imitates.  The  deeds  of  daring  and  self-denial  and  sacri- 
fice done  here,  will  be  talked  about,  and  printed,  and  written 
about  and  imitated  there.  Men  emulate.  In  every  company 
there  will  be  spirits  more  courageous  and  daring  than  others, 
and  so  all  through  the  5,000.  These  will  lead  and  the  rest  will 
follow. 

II.  But  such  combination  or  oneness  of  action  will  only  be 
possible  with  oneness  of  direction.  If  all  are  to  act  to- 
gether all  must  act  on  one  plan,  and,  therefore,  all  must  act 
under  one  head.  Twenty  different  heads,  according  to  the 
nature  and  experience  and  history  of  heads,  will  produce 
twenty  different  plans  with  different  methods  of  their  ac- 
complishment, clashing  and  hindering  each  other  more  or  less. 
Then  what  next?  Differences  of  opinion,  of  feeling,  of  fol- 
lowing, of  action.  Disagreement,  confusion,  separation,  de- 
struction. I  am  of  Paul,  and  I  am  of  Apollos,  soon  leads, 
so  far  as  the  actuality  of  things  is  concerned,  to  being  of 
nothing  save  wrangling  and  the  Devil. 

Bring  in  your  earthly  usages.  How  do  men  ordinarily  act? 
Do  you  want  to  tunnel  a  mountain,  bridge  a  river,  manage 


XXVII]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      413 

a  railway,  or  conquer  a  nation?  Is  it  committeed?  Did  a 
committee  build  the  ark,  emancipate  the  Israelites,  or  ever 
command  or  judge  or  govern  them  after  they  were  emanci- 
pated? Is  it  not  an  axiom  everywhere  accepted,  in  times  of 
war,  at  least,  and  we  are  speaking  of  times  of  war,  that  one 
bad  general  is  preferable  to  two  good  ones?  If  you  will  keep 
the  unity  of  5,cxx),  one  mind  must  lead  and  direct  them.  Is 
this  direction  of  one  mind  all  the  direction  needed?  By  no 
means.  Subordinate  leadership  there  must  be  in  all  manner 
of  directions ;  all  the  talent  in  this  direction  possessed  by  the 
5,000  must  be  called  into  play,  but  one  controlling,  directing 
will  must  be  acknowledged,  accepted,  and  implicitly  followed, 
if  you  are  to  keep  the  unity  of  5,000  and  make  the  most  of 
it  for  God  and  man. 

1.  Then  of  course  you  zvill  train  the  5,000.  An  army  without 
training,  without  drill,  would  be  simply  a  loose,  helpless  mob, 
a  source  of  weakness  and  danger,  impossible  to  hold  together 
without  training  and  drill.  And  this  5,000  will  be  little  better, 
though  every  one  of  them  may  now  have  hearts  full  of  zeal  for 
God  and  love  to  man ;  so  we  must  train  them,  and  that  to  the 
uttermost.  We  must  teach  them  how  to  fight,  how  to  fight 
together,  and  how  to  fight  in  the  very  best  way.  Train  them 
in  the  industrious,  practical,  and  self-sacrificing  discharge  of 
their  duties.  Develop  what  gifts  they  possess,  and  help  them 
to  acquire  others.  They  will  improve.  They  are  only  babes 
now,  they  will  grow  up  to  be  men,  some  of  them  to  be  head 
and  shoulders  above  their  fellows ;  think  what  they  will  be- 
come when  trained  and  taught  and  developed,  and  inured  to 
hardship  and  accustomed  to  the  war.  Don't  despise  the  gift 
that  is  in  any,  you  will  very  often  find  the  last  to  be  first  and 
the  first  last ;  let  every  one  have  a  chance ;  God  is  no  respecter 
of  persons,  nor  sex  either,  neither  must  you  be.  Every  gift 
you  need  is  here ;  they  only  want  calling  forth  and  cultivat- 
ing, and  you  will  be  fully  provided  for  the  war.  But  mind, 
you  must  train  and  teach  and  develop  —  no  pipe-clay  soldiers 
will  be  of  any  service  here  —  and  establish  your  army  in 
actual  service.  In  earthly  armies,  something  may  be  done  in 
making  soldiers  with  marchings  and  inspections  and  drillings 
in  the  barrack  square,  far  away  from  the  din  and  smoke  of 
actual  war ;  but  not  so  here ;  they  must  learn  as  they  fight, 
and  fight  while  they  learn.  They  will  train  most  rapidly  in 
the  ranks ;  and  only  in  the  ranks,  on  the  field,  with  the  flag 
of  victory  waving  over  them,  can  they  be  made  into  veterans 
and  inspired  with  that  feeling,  or  conviction,  or  whatever  it 
may  be  that  will  make  them  assured  that  they  are  the  soldiers 
of  the  Most  High,  and  therefore  invincible,  unconquerable,  and 
all  conquering. 

2.  When  yon  have  trained  your  5,000  you  mill  sort  them. 


414  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

When  you  have  trained,  and  tried  and  developed  your  force, 
and  found  out  what  they  are,  and  what  they  can  do,  then  you 
will  put  the  right  man  in  the  right  place,  and  for  every  place 
you  will  have  a  man.  Gifts  differ.  You  will  want  the  head 
and  the  ear,  and  the  hand  and  the  feet,  and  you  will  have 
heads  and  eyes  and  ears  and  hands  in  abundance.  Now  for 
every  man  in  his  own  order,  and  according  to  his  several 
ability.  You  want  infantry  and  cavalry,  and  engineers  and 
transports,  and  every  other  arm  needed  to  make  up  a  mighty 
force,  and  you  have  all,  or  you  will  by  your  training  make 
all,  and  to  all  you  must  assign  the  place  for  which  they  are 
adapted  and  needed. 

3.  Then  of  course  there  must  be  obedience.  If  the  5,000 
are  to  act  together,  and  to  act  on  one  plan,  it  will  be  self- 
evident  that  it  can  only  be  effected  by  implicit  obedience.  If 
it  were  otherwise  —  if  the  Officers  of  the  Salvation  force  can 
only  express  their  wishes  for  those  composing  it  to  act  in 
some  particular  manner,  which  said  wishes  can  be  received 
or  rejected  as  they  may  appear  pleasant,  then  anything  like 
certain  and  foreseen  action  is  impossible.  But  if  it  is  known 
and  assured  that  the  5,000  will  act  as  directed,  then  the  most 
important  measures  can  be  devised  and  executed  with  the 
exactest  certainty.  If  a  desired  course  of  action  will  only  be 
taken  on  its  recommending  itself  to  the  judgment,  the  lead- 
ings, the  impulses,  the  feelings  of  each  individual,  then  you 
can  be  sure  of  nothing  except  confusion,  defeat,  and  destruc- 
tion. 

Try  this  on  any  of  the  aforesaid  human  undertakings,  and 
where  will  you  soon  be?  Any  great  commercial  enterprise, 
for  instance:  will  not  the  very  speedy  result  be  bankruptcy? 
Or  war?  Try  it  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy.  Let  every 
man  fight  as  he  is  led,  or  every  regiment  charge  up  the  hill 
and  storm  the  redoubt  or  do  any  other  deadly,  murderous 
deeds  according  as  they  are  resolved  upon  after  discussion, 
and  votes  and  majorities,  and  where  will  you  be?  What  sort 
of  telegrams  will  you  send  home  to  an  expectant  country, 
and  what  sort  of  a  welcome  back  will  those  of  you  that  are 
left  receive  ?  No !  obedience  is  the  word.  Somebody  who 
knows  what  they  are  doing,  to  direct,  and  then  simple,  un- 
questioning obedience.  Obedience  for  earthly  business  and 
earthly  war,  and  obedience  for  God's  business  and  God's 
Army. 

4.  And  then  you  must  have  discipline,  order.  Those  who 
keep  the  commandments  and  who  excel  in  service  must  be 
rewarded,  and  those  who  are  disobedient  must  be  degraded, 
punished,  expelled. 

5.  And  lastly,  hatnng  organised  and  developed  and  disci- 
plined your  army,  it  m>ust  be  used,  employed,  and  that  to  the 


WILLIAM  BOOTH  (1879) 


xxvii]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      415 

uttermost.  Nothing  demoralises  Salvation  Soldiers  more  than 
inacthnty.  Idleness  is  stark  ruin,  and  the  Devil's  own  op- 
portunity. Push  forward,  never  heed  the  number  or  position 
of  your  foes,  or  the  impossibility  of  overcoming  them.  Your 
Salvation  Army  has  been  made  to  accomplish  the  impossible, 
and  conquer  that  which  to  human  calculations  cannot  be  over- 
come. Forward!  If  you  will  only  go  forward,  and  go  for- 
ward on  the  lines  here  indicated,  you  will  go  forward  to  fulfil 
the  commission  of  your  Divine  Captain,  the  disciplining  of  all 
nations,  the  subjugation  and  conquest  of  the  world. 

It  is  instructive  to  remember  that  as  a  child  William 
Booth  had  loved  to  play  soldiers,  and  that  he  became  a 
"  captain  "  of  a  secret  society  in  his  youth ;  it  is  also  in- 
structive to  learn  that  as  far  back  in  his  missionary  career 
as  1857  he  had  thought  of  the  soldier's  red  coat  as  a  re- 
ligious advertisement.  The  following  memory  of  William 
Booth  was  written  by  an  aged  lady  in  Cornwall  who  at- 
tended his  revival  services  in  that  year : 

When  he  saw  the  people  as  they  entered  going  in  the  back 
seats  he  would  shout,  "What  are  you  about?  Bring  the 
people  up  to  the  front,  fill  the  front  seats  first."  Again  and 
again  he  would  reprove  them  for  one  error  or  another. '  At 
the  end  of  the  first  service  in  the  evening  he  would  be  im- 
patient to  get  at  work  at  the  penitent  rail.  If  he  thought  the 
people  would  not  come  down  quietly  from  the  gallery  he 
would  exclaim  at  the  top  of  his  voice,  "  Come  down  in  the 
body  of  the  chapel,  put  out  the  gas  and  cool  the  chapel.  Do 
you  hear  there  ?  Come  down ;  be  quiet.  There  is  work  to  be 
done  here  to-night  for  eternity.  Let  all  the  prayer-leaders 
come  up  to  the  front.  Come  on ;  be  quiet  " ;  waving  his  hands 
and  beckoning,  with  his  lovely  black  hair  floating  about. 

His  preaching  was  earnest,  faithful,  and  to  the  point.  His 
sole  aim  was  to  bring  sinners  to  repentance.  He  was  not 
afraid  to  preach  about  the  wrath  of  God,  damnation,  hell  fire, 
and  the  smoke  of  their  torments  for  ever  and  ever. 

When  inviting  the  workers  to  go  with  him  to  an  out-door 
service  he  once  remarked,  "  I  often  wish  I  was  a  soldier 
dressed  in  a  red  coat,  so  that  it  would  attract  the  crowd  and 
bring  them  to  the  feet  of  Jesus." 

That  the  efifect  upon  the  world  of  this  new  portent  in 
religious  enthusiasm  was  almost  immediate,  may  be  seen 
from  the  following  article  which  appeared  in  no  other 
quarter  than  The  Saturday  Reviezv.     It  was  publisl7ed  dur- 


4i6  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

ing  July,  1879,  and  was  joyfully  quoted  in  the  now  ringing 
pages  of  The  Salvationist,  with  the  title,  "  '  The  Saturday 
Review  '  on  the  Hosanna  Meeting."  The  article,  which  is 
not  at  all  unfair,  although  it  remains  studiously  on  the 
surface  of  religious  experience,  proceeds  as  follows : 

The  fortresses  of  Beelzebub,  of  course,  are  music-halls, 
penny  gaffs,  dancing  rooms,  and  the  like ;  of  these,  in  London 
and  elsewhere,  the  Salvation  Army,  under  the  guidance  of 
Mr.  Booth,  has  stormed  no  less  than  one  hundred,  and  has 
turned  these  haunts  of  ribaldry  into  places  of  divine  service. 

Those  must  have  been  very  dull  or  unsympathetic  persons 
who  could  resist  the  pious  jollity_  of  the  anniversary  meeting. 

The  proceedings  began  with  the  singing  of  the  following 
stanza : 

Hark,  hark,  my  soul,  what  warlike  songs  are  swelling, 
Through  Britain's  streets  and  on  from  door  to  door; 

How  grand  the  truths  those  burning  strains  are  telling 
Of  that  great  war  till  sin  shall  be  no  more ! 

.Salvation  Army,  Army  of  God ! 

Onward  to  conquer  the  world  with  Fire  and  Blood. 

There  was  some  pecuHar  quality  in  these  last  words  which  a 
stranger  could  not  catch.  The  phrase  "  with  Fire  and  Blood  " 
was  sung,  or  rather  roared  again  and  again,  until  the  perspira- 
tion ran  down  the  faces  of  the  soldiery  as  they  clasped  one 
another's  hands  and  beamed.  Public  attention  was  particu- 
larly drawn  to  one  Captain  on  the  lower  platform,  who  vocif- 
erated with  such  zeal  as  almost  to  lose  the  semblance  of 
humanity,  who  finally  gave  his  neighbour  a  hard  rub  round 
the  head  in  token  of  spiritual  good  fellowship.  This  quaint 
person  afterwards  recounted  his  experiences,  and  delighted  the 
audience  by  assuring  them  that  he  used  to  be  "  a  swearing, 
drunken  shoemaker  at  Merthy  Tydvil,"  but  that  now  he  was 
"  a  Hallelujah  pastor  at  Whitechapel,"  to  which  the  entire  hall 
sympathetically  replied  "  Hosanna." 

Those  foreign  critics  who  blame  the  apathy  and  cold-blood- 
edness of  English  character  can  never  have  attended  a  Halle- 
lujah meeting.  H  the  sight  of  many  pairs  of  radiant  eyes 
and  waving  arms  would  not  persuade  them,  they  would  cer- 
tainly be  convinced  by  a  rousing  slap  on  the  back  from  some 
thoroughly  happy  and  devout  stranger.  In  fact,  the  flow  of 
animal  spirits,  the  manifest  affection  of  all  these  rough  people 
for  one  another,  the  absence  of  anything  like  hypocrisy  or 
self-seeking  in  the  whole  affair,  were  not  to  be  overlooked 
by  any  candid  spectator.  That  the  nature  of  the  prayers 
and  speeches  was  oddly  boisterous,  and  that  shouts  of  laughter 


xxvii]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      417 

pervaded  what  was  intended  to  be  a  serious  divine  service, 
interfered  not  in  the  least  with  the  sincerity  of  the  worshippers. 
The  real  good,  such  as  it  is,  done  to  the  nation  by  widespread 
movements  of  revival  like  this  is  less  a  religious  than  a  moral 
one,  though  experience  has  proved  that  they  are  most  of  all 
eflPectual  when  morality  and  religion  are  blended  in  them  to  an 
equal  extent.  Without  religion,  to  use  the  pet  phrase  of  the 
Salvation  Army,  there  is  no  fire  in  a  revival,  without  morality 
there  is  no  blood.  Most  of  our  secular  efforts  to  raise  the 
masses  have  simply  failed  because  of  their  inability  to  set  the 
hearts  of  the  populace  aflame ;  while  the  notable  revivals  in 
America  and  Ireland  flashed  out  and  were  gone  in  a  few 
months  because  all  was  neglected  except  the  religious  afflatus. 
The  strength  of  Mr.  Booth  seems  to  be  that  he  unites  the 
two  powers ;  he  preaches  doctrines  that  fill  the  face  of  a 
believer  with  light  and  radiance,  and  he  is  no  less  thorough  in 
enforcing  a  complete  reform  of  life. 

It  may  be  said  at  once  that  what  the  Salvation  Army 
accomplished  at  this  time  —  long  before  the  era  of  its  Social 
Work  —  was  to  provide  an  outlet,  an  escape,  for  that  in- 
tense burning  and  explosive  religious  consciousness  which 
in  every  age  has  found  neither  relief  for  its  suffering  nor 
opportunity  for  its  ecstasy  in  the  careful  provisions  of 
Institutionalism.  By  challenging  the  world  of  sin  and 
misery  as  an  army  of  .liberation,  by  boldly,  triumphantly, 
and  with  a  riotous  happiness  confronting  the  world  of 
average  common  sense  and  average  dulness,  the  Salvation 
Army  made  it  easier  for  zealots  to  declare  themselves,  and 
made  it  easier  for  sinners  to  confess  themselves.  The 
Methodist  Revivals  had  lacked  this  laughing  happiness,  this 
hilarious  boldness,  this  immense  faith  in  the  power  of 
Christ;  they  called  people  to  God,  but  they  did  not  taunt 
the  Devil  and  challenge  the  world  with  so  loud  an  assur- 
ance of  religious  triumph.  There  was  something  Han- 
overian about  them ;  they  were  bourgeois ;  they  were,  above 
everything  else,  a  struggle  of  strong  feeling  to  be  respect- 
able. But  the  Salvation  Army,  if  we  quietly  consider  the 
matter,  was  much  more  English  than  the  Methodist  Re- 
vivals ;  it  had,  indeed,  an  Elizabethan  note  in  its  riot ;  it 
trusted  the  heart  of  mankind;  it  broke  through  reserve  and 
decorum;  it  beat  its  drum,  and  blew  its  trumpet  because  it 
was  happy,  and  becatise  to  manifest  happiness  is  natural  and 


41 8  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

true.  Singing,  dancing,  and  the  occasional  embracing  — 
the  very  excesses  which  shocked  public  opinion  —  were,  in 
sober  truth,  a  return  to  the  more  vigorous  days  of  medieval 
England. 

H  we  quote  a  few  reports  from  the  pages  of  The  Sal- 
vationist it  will  be  seen  at  once  how  completely  the  new 
method  appealed  to  the  hearts  of  those  multitudes  who  found 
it  difficult  to  be  good  and  impossible  to  be  ecclesiastically 
obedient.  We  shall  not  argue  this  point ;  but  we  v/ould  ask 
the  reader  to  bear  in  mind  that  the  Salvation  Army  has 
largely  recruited  itself  from  the  lowest,  and  also  from  the 
most  neglected  ranks  of  humanity;  that  its  instrument  for 
morality  and  righteousness  obtains  its  force  from  men  and 
women  to  whom  the  discipline  of  formalism  makes  no 
appeal;  and  that  all  the  good  it  has  accomplished  in  this 
world  —  including  its  democratic  revival  among  the  more 
sober  and  exclusive  Churches  —  flows  from  the  enthusiasm 
of  people  who,  left  alone,  would  never  have  lifted  a  finger 
for  morality  and  never  have  sacrificed  one  moment  of  their 
life  for  righteousness. 

In  the  quotations  which  follow,  the  least  observant  of 
readers  can  hardly  fail  to  discern,  however  fastidious  his 
taste,  that  here  is  the  spirit  of  freedom  and  joy,  the  spirit 
of  liberation  and  delight,  the  spirit  of  superhuman  yearning 
and  ecstasy,  even  if  clumsily  and  crudely  expressed  by  the 
rejoicing  writers.  The  phrases  which  shock,  or  grate,  or 
disgust  are  only  blunders  in  the  symbolism  of  language. 
The  fact  beneath  the  words  is  the  fact  of  human  nature 
radically  changed,  verily  liberated  and  enlarged,  absolutely 
convinced  of  union  with  the  Divine. 

Glory,  glory,  glory,  glory  to  Jesus,  to  JESUS.  We  must 
conquer  and  win  Hayle  for  Jesus.  Good  times  all  day  on 
Sunday.  Saints  jumping,  dancing,  crying,  shouting,  and  roll- 
ing on  the  ground.  We  disgusted  some  people.  Hallelujah. 
—  Blood-washed  Johnny. 

.  .  .  Then  came  the  power.  All  got  down  after  Mr.  Ball- 
ington  said  a  few  words ;  then  came  the  glory ;  such  a  rush 
out:  then  a  fight  and  a  struggle.  Out  came  seven  feathers, 
three  pipes,  three  pairs  of  earrings,  three  brooches,  two  other 
fine  things,  one  grand  pin,  one  Albert  chain,  one  tobacco- 
pouch,  two  pieces  of  twist,  one  24^  inches  long.     They  did 


XXVII]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      419 

go  in ;  I  never  saw  such  a  meeting.  Mr.  Ballington  asked 
one  man,  "  Does  He  save  you?  "  He  said,  "  He  does."  "  Tell 
Him  He  does  again,"  said  Mr.  Ballington.  He  kept  telling 
Him.  At  last  he  said,  "  Mr.  Booth,  I  shall  burst  if  God  does 
not  enlarge  the  vessel."  Then  he  got  them  to  sing,  "  The 
Lamb,  the  Lamb,"  and  they  did  sing  it. 

Never  can  I  forget  Tuesday  night's  Holiness  Meeting,  held 
in  the  Salvation  Chapel,  Spring  Garden  Lane.  .  .  .  God 
backed  the  speaking  with  convicting,  cutting  power,  after 
which  His  Spirit  was  poured  upon  us  in  an  overwhelming 
manner.  Immediately  afterwards  some  twenty  rushed  for- 
ward for  this  freedom  from  sin.  We  sang.  Weeping  and 
groaning  commenced  in  all  parts,  when  some  twenty  more 
rushed  forward.  Oh,  the  scene  at  this  juncture.  One  dear 
lad,  not  above  seventeen,  after  lying  his  length  on  the  ground 
for  some  time,  cried  out,  "  Oh,  it's  come.  I  have  it.  Oh, 
God!  my  God!  my  God!  You  do  cleanse  me."  Then  fol- 
lowed more  wrestling  and  agonizing,  and  the  forms  again 
being  cleared  of  those  who  had  obtained  liberty,  some  twenty 
more  sprang  to  the  front,  and  plunged  into  "  the  pool."  Once 
more  we  cleared  them,  but  only  to  make  room  for  more  who 
were  waiting  to  come  out  and  sing,  "  I  believe,  I  believe,  Jesus 
saves,  Jesus  saves  " ;  but  at  this  point  nothing  could  be  heard 
save  sobs  and  groans  and  heart-rending  prayers.  Thus  con- 
tinued this  mighty  outpour  until  upwards  of  seventy  rose 
testifying  with  feelings  indescribable  and  unutterable  joy,  while 
all  around  stood  weeping  and  rejoicing,  singing  and  shouting. 

A  young  man  who  rushed  out  of  his  seat,  fell  at  the  peni- 
tent-form and  cried  for  mercy  —  which  he  soon  obtained  as 
soon  as  he  ventured  his  all  on  the  Blood  —  being  so  over- 
powered with  the  glory,  for  we  had  it  down  and  no  mistake, 
got  up,  and  looking  in  my  face  with  his  hands  on  his  breast, 
said :  "  I  think  I  am  going  to  die,  but  the  Blood  cleanseth 
me."  I  turned  to  Brother  Davies  and  said,  "  This  fellow 
is  going  to  die";  and  he  shouts,  "Hallelujah."  I  turned  to 
the  fellow  and  said,  "  Get  on  your  knees,  and  if  you  die,  die 
at  the  feet  of  Jesus";  but,  thank  God,  he  is  only  just  begin- 
ning to  live,  and  he  is  still  alive,  and  means  to  fight  in  the 
Army.     Glory  to  God. 

I  went  to  one  young  man  that  was  kneeling  at  the  penitent- 
form  ;  he  was  just  like  a  block  of  marble,  he  knelt  with  his 
hands  clasped,  and  his  eyes  raised  to  Heaven.  I  laid  my  hand 
on  his  shoulder  and  said  to  him,  "  My  brother,  what  have  you 
come  out  to  this  form  for  ? "  He  did  not  speak  for  a  few 
moments.  At  last  he  gasped  out,  at  the  same  time  laying 
his  hand  on  his  breast,  "  Oh,  it's  all  here,  I  never  felt  like  this 
before,"  then  the  tears  began  to  flow,  and  he  began  to  shout, 
"  Oh,  I  want  Christ !     I  want  Christ !     I  want  Christ !  "  and 


420  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

Glory  to  God  he  soon  got  what  he  wanted  —  for  none  ever 
sought  His  face  in  vain. 

A  sanctifying  influence  and  convincing  power  seemed  to 
steal  over  all  as  we  sang.  "  I  am  coming  to  the  Cross."  And 
we  did  get  to  the  Cross  —  to  its  very  foot.  After  prevailing 
prayer  Captains  Smith,  Haywood,  and  Coombs  gave  powerful 
testimonies  of  Christ's  taking  away  and  keeping  from  the 
desire  of  sin.  I  felt  unutterably  filled  with  the  Spirit.  Never 
shall  I  forget  the  scene  that  took  place  when  all  unsanctified 
were  asked  to  come  forward.  It  seemed  as  if  Christ  said, 
"  What  will  ye  that  I  should  do  unto  you  ?  "  Some,  when  it 
came  to  real  definite  work,  we  found  had  not  yet  the  witness 
of  pardon ;  others  had  for  years  been  hungering  and  thirst- 
ing for  deliverance  from  the  power  of  sin,  but  had  been  cling- 
ing to  some  fond  idol.  There  was  a  cry  on  all  sides.  Some 
fifteen  or  sixteen  rushed  to  the  front.  "  Oh,  Lord,  I'll  not 
get  up  till  Thou  hast  sanctified  me,"  said  one  young  man. 
"  My  Lord,  my  Saviour,"  said  one  dear  young  woman,  "  You 
know  for  years  this  is  what  I  have  been  seeking:  Oh,  Jesus, 
Jesus,  give  it  to  me."  And  He  did,  and  she  rose,  clapped  her 
hands,  and  shouted  for  joy.  After  this,  over  twenty  more 
rushed  forward ;  while  those  who  had  obtained  the  blissful 
peace  stood  round  singing,  with  faces  of  rapture  and  tears 
of  joy,  "  I  am  sure,  I  am  sure  Jesus  saves,  Jesus  saves,  and 
His  Blood  makes  me  whiter  than  snow."  More  idols  cast  at 
Christ's  feet ;  more  rose  feeling  the  liberty ;  more  room  was 
made  for  those  yet  seeking ;  more  rushed  forward ;  and  while 
weeping  and  wrestling  and  groaning  on  all  sides,  a  man  cried 
out,  "  I'm  willing !  I'm  willing !  I'm  willing !  "  "  What  are 
you  willing  to  do,  my  brother?"  I  asked.  "Oh,"  he  replied, 
"  willing  to  confess  Christ  before  my  shop-mates."  Some  nine 
or  ten  forms  were  cleared,  until  over  200  came  forward  seeking 
in  an  agony  of  soul  and  heart  a  life  of  purity.  We  finished 
this  meeting  with  250  testimonies. 

One  dear  woman  says  she  will  have  to  thank  God  for  ever 
for  sending  the  Salvation  Army  here.  She  would  not  yield  at 
our  meeting,  so  she  went  to  our  Council  of  War  at  Merthyr, 
and  stayed  at  the  all-night  of  prayer,  when  God  set  her  captive 
soul  at  liberty.  When  she  got  saved  she  shouted  and  jumped 
like  a  mad  woman,  and  Happy  Jack  jumped  with  her.  It  just 
suited  me.  Oh,  Hallelujah !  When  she  came  out  her  husband 
scolded  her  for  shouting  so,  and  making  so  much  noise.  Since 
then  he  has  got  saved  too.  He  was  as  bad  as  his  wife.  As 
soon  as  he  got  saved  he  jumped  up  and  shouted,  "  This  is 
Glory!  This  is  Glory!  This  is  Glory! "  And  we  all  shouted 
together.  This  man  went  shouting  all  the  way  home,  "  THIS 
IS  GLORY !  THIS  IS  GLORY !  "  and  we  could  hear  him 
five  hundred  yards  off.     One  man  said  to  me,  "  You  have  sent 


XXVII]    BECOMES  GENERAL  OF  THE  ARMY      421 

him   right  off   his   head."     I   said,   "  He   is   all   right.     They 
suit  me."     Oh,  Hallelujah! 

I  once  remarked  to  Bramwell  Booth,  speaking  of  the 
risk  that  lies  in  all  such  fervour  as  we  find  expressed  in 
reports  of  this  character,  that  enthusiasm  is  a  highly  / 
dangerous  thing.  He  made  answer,  "  Not  if  you  organize 
it."  The  reader  must  bear  in  mind  that  while  General 
Booth  was  doing  all  in  his  power  to  overcome  the  torpor 
and  apathy  of  the  world  by  an  excess  of  religious  fervour, 
he  was  also  at  the  same  time  organizing  and  controlling 
the  enthusiasm  which  resulted.  From  the  very  first  with 
more  than  one  shrewd  mind  helping  him,  the  General  set 
about  organizing  the  zeal  and  fervour  of  his  followers. 
He  called  men  and  women  by  the  most  violent  means  to 
his  side,  but  once  at  his  side  he  disciplined  them  into 
orderly  legions.  Extreme  as  some  of  his  utterances  seem, 
fanatical  as  indeed  some  of  his  methods  appear,  he  was 
yet  in  some  strange  fashion  the  most  practical,  level-headed 
and  far-seeing  of  Englishmen,  a  man  typical  of  our  manu- 
facturing Midlands.  He  had  a  detecting  instinct  for  cant, 
a  violent  detestation  for  professional  unction,  and  a  per- 
fect loathing  for  the  pernicious  egoism  of  certain  religious 
bodies.  "  A  dunghill  religion "  was  his  contemptuous 
phrase  for  the  teaching  of  the  Plymouth  Brotherhood. 
Many  hard  phrases  did  he  rap  out  when  approached  by  men 
obsessed  by  introspective  religion.  He  had  one  test,  an 
infallible,  and  a  scriptural  test,  for  all  talkers :  "  What  do 
you  do?  What  are  you  willing  to  give  up?"  He  cut 
short  those  who  wanted  to  discuss  doctrinal  refinements 
with  the  instruction,  "  Go  and  do  something." 

At  the  very  beginning  of  his  crusade,  when  one  might 
think  he  would  be  swept  off  his  feet  by  the  astounding 
success  of  this  new  movement,  we  find  him  watching  over 
his  Soldiers  and  rebuking  them  for  excess  of  zeal. 

But  he  did  not  shrink  from  demanding  an  absolute  self- 
sacrifice,  and  he  thought  very  little  of  a  man  who  was  not 
ready  to  give  up  the  whole  world  for  the  sake  of  salvation. 
One  of  the  Officers  in  the  Salvation  Army  has  a  story  which 
shows  the  way  of  William  Booth  with  those  who  are  in- 
clined to  think  first  of  themselves : 


422     THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH    [chap.xxvh] 

Although  I  joined  the  Christian  Mission  with  my  father's 
consent  (which  was  given  disagreeably  and  reluctantly),  it  was 
not  long  before  he  came  to  look  me  up.  He  thought  I  was 
looking  pale  and  over-worked,  and  protested  to  the  General 
that  "the  first  law  of  nature  is  self-preservation."  I  think  I 
can  hear  now  the  General's  sharp  repartee,  "  Yes,  Captain 
Edmonds,  but  the  first  law  of  grace  is  self-sacrifice !  " 

But  in  the  midst  of  his  tumultuous,  headlong  life,  stir- 
ring up  enthusiasm,  organizing  enthusiasm,  calling  for  self- 
sacrifice,  and  directing  self-sacrifice  —  the  General,  as  the 
sole  head  of  an  entirely  new  religious  body,  found  himself 
called  upon  to  decide  a  question  in  the  sphere  of  doctrine 
which  greatly  disturbed  him  at  the  time,  and  remained  with 
him  almost  to  the  end  of  his  life  as  a  source  of  occasional 
anxiety.  He  was  not  only  a  General,  he  had  to  make  him- 
self a  Lawgiver. 


I 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE   QUESTION    OF    HOLY    COMMUNION 
1881-1882 

Among  the  few  people  of  gentle  birth,  who  from  the  first 
welcomed  the  Salvation  Army,  was  Lady  Henry  Somerset. 
She  was  attracted  by  the  Army  because  it  provided  a  real 
reason  for  rigorous  self-abnegation,  and  because  it  pre- 
sented a  real  opportunity  for  a  life  of  devotion. 

She  tells  me  that  she  went  to  General  Booth  with  a 
desire  to  surrender  and  live  her  life  in  the  obscurest  work 
of  the  Salvation  Army,  and  with  only  one  possible  objection 
in  her  mind.  The  General  had  more  or  less  banned  the 
Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.  Lady  Henry  was  willing 
to  join  the  Army;  one  may  say  she  was  eager  to  become  a 
Soldier;  but  she  could  not  give  up  the  rite,  which  for  her 
was  the  central  rite,  of  the  Christian  religion.  She  asked 
General  Booth  if  she  might  be  allowed  to  go  for  Holy  Com- 
munion to  the  Church  of  England.  The  answer  was  a 
negative. 

Now,  this  question  of  the  Eucharist  is  one  which  con- 
veniently explains  at  once  the  success  and  the  limitations 
of  William  Booth.  If  we  study  his  attitude  towards  this 
rite,  which  had  been  from  the  time  of  the  Apostles  (with 
many  borrowings  from  pagan  ritual)  the  centre  of  Christian 
worship,  we  shall  see  how  he  drew  so  large  a  multitude  to 
his  side,  and  how  he  alienated  the  sympathies  of  a  multitude, 
if  not  so  large,  at  least  of  finer  sensibilities. 

Lady  Henry  Somerset  said  to  me  one  day  in  1913: 
"  Whenever  I  hear  the  Salvation  Army  criticised,  and  when- 
ever I  myself  am  inclined  to  judge  it  from  a  theological 
point  of  view,  I  remind  myself  of  the  solitary  Soldier  in  the 
slums  of  East  London,  in  the  slums  of  every  great  city  in 
the  world,  who  lives  on  next  to  nothing,  who  seeks  the 
eternal  welfare  of  souls,  and  who  does  everything  for  love. 
Always  remember  that  Willi.i.m  Booth  inspired  that.     I  re- 

423 


424  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

gard  him  as  the  true  St.  Francis  of  the  modern  world, 
the  true  St.  Francis  of  our  industrial  civilization.  He  shook 
England  by  his  wonderful  book  on  poverty.  He  was  the 
first  man  to  hold  up  to  the  Church,  and  make  her  face  them 
as  they  really  are,  the  unhappy  miseries  of  the  poor.  That 
was  a  great  work,  and  only  a  great  man,  an  inspired  man, 
could  have  accomplished  it.  I  tell  you  what  I  am  inclined 
to  say  about  him,  after  years  of  reflection.  I  think  that  he 
saw  God,  saw  Him  quite  clearly,  but  through  vulgar  eyes. 
I  do  not  mean  social  vulgarity,  of  course.  I  do  not  mean 
anything  banale  and  snobbish  by  that  term.  I  mean  that 
his  spiritual  vision  was  always  coloured  by  the  coarseness 
and  the  hardness  of  his  early  training.  He  saw  God 
clearer  than  almost  any  man  of  his  generation,  but  with 
the  eyes  of  a  provincial  who  had  suffered  hardships.  And 
when  his  spiritual  life  deepened,  as  it  certainly  did  deepen, 
he  had  become  so  possessed  by  his  huge  task  of  world-wide 
social  reform,  that  he  really  had  not  a  single  moment  in 
which  to  acquaint  himself  with  the  spirit  of  the  Church. 
I  am  quite  sure  that  he  really  never  came  to  know  Anglican 
Christianity." 

This  is  the  judgment  of  a  shrewd  and  refined  observer. 
It  is  true  in  some  respects,  and  in  those  respects  profoundly 
true;  but  it  misses  one  important  consideration.  William 
Booth  faced  the  Catholic  question  of  the  Sacrament,  and 
made  a  deliberate  choice.  Whether  he  was  right  or  wrong, 
he  deliberately  rejected  the  Sacrament;  but  it  was  not 
until  he  had  studied  the  matter  with  care  and  with  anxiety, 
not  until  he  had  weighed  with  a  grave  deliberation  all  the 
consequences  of  that  rejection. 

Because  he  decided  to  do  without  the  Sacraments  of 
Catholic  Christianity,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he 
brushed  those  sacred  rites  impatiently,  brusquely,  and 
scandalously  aside.  There  was  nothing  blatant,  rash,  or 
iconoclastic  about  that  rejection.  He  did  not  make  a  mock 
of  these  holy  things,  so  infinitely  precious  to  thousands  of 
Christians.  For  years  he  considered  the  subject;  indeed, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  influence  of  some  of  his  followers, 
particularly  Railton,  it  is  possible  that  he  might  have  re- 
tained the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper.     To  his  life's 


XXVIII]  HOLY  COMMUNION  425 

end,  certainly  for  many  long  years  after  his  decision,  he 
was  occasionally  disturbed  as  to  its  wisdom. 

We  must  see  on  what  grounds  William  Booth  based  his 
disregard  of  the  Eucharist.  These  grounds  were  at  once 
practical  and  theological.  To  begin  with,  the  people  who 
crowded  to  his  celebration  of  the  rite  were  in  numerous 
instances  men  and  women  just  snatched  from  the  destruc- 
tion of  alcoholism,  to  whom  the  very  taste,  the  mere  odour, 
of  wine  was  a  danger.  Then,  when  he  had  done  away  with 
fermented  wines  and  employed  only  coloured  water  in  the 
rite,  the  scenes  were  sometimes  so  tumultuous,  even  so 
hilarious  —  for  his  earliest  converts  were  the  roughest  and 
wildest  elements  in  society,  the  multitude  neglected  at  that 
time  by  the  Churches  —  that  he  was  shocked  and  offended. 

To  William  Booth,  born  an  Anglican  and  trained  as  a 
Methodist,  there  was  always  an  element,  a  suggestion  of 
mystery  and  beauty  in  his  thoughts  about  the  Lord's  Supper. 
Until  the  age  of  fifty  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  be  rid 
of  this  heredity.  He  had  never  perhaps  felt  towards  that 
Sacrament  any  feeling  comparable  with  those  of  a  devout 
Catholic,  but  unquestionably  he  had  regarded  this  rite 
from  his  boyhood  upward  with  reverence  and  honour;  it 
stood  for  him  as  a  part  of  Christian  worship.  But  when 
in  the  social  difficulties  of  his  Whitechapel  circumstances 
he  came  to  decide  about  this  matter,  he  had  at  his  side 
young  men  in  whose  minds  was  no  inhibiting  heredity  and 
whose  impatience  with  anything  in  the  nature  of  priest- 
craft, magic,  or  sacerdotalism  was  akin  to  passion.  They 
were  reformers  who  refused  to  be  hindered  by  authority; 
progressives,  with  little  but  disdain  for  traditionalism; 
evangelists,  who  loathed  only  next  to  sin  the  paralysing 
touch  of  the  formalist.  For  George  Railton,  in  particular, 
there  was  only  one  baptism  —  the  baptism  of  the  Holy 
Ghost ;  only  one  communion  with  Christ  —  the  communion 
of  a  cleansed  heart  devoted  to  His  service.  His  influence 
was  flung  on  the  side  of  rejection ;  and  William  Booth,  who 
leaned  in  matters  of  organization  far  more  upon  his  young 
men  than  upon  his  wife,  finally  decided  to  give  up  the 
Sacraments. 

In  a  draft  drawn  up  in  1881  by  George  Railton  for  the 


426  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

consideration  of  General  Booth  and  his  Chief  of  the  Staff, 
Bramwell  Booth,  the  arguments  for  abandonment  are  set 
forth  with  a  speciousness  and  a  plausibiHty  which  are  more 
curious  than  persuasive.  We  shall  not  trouble  the  reader 
with  the  subtlety  of  this  document,  but  where  it  is  emphatic 
and  declares  the  mind  of  William  Booth  as  he  came  at  last 
to  make  it  up,  we  shall  incorporate  it  with  the  following 
statement. 

The  ultimate  decision  of  William  Booth  was  reached  on 
the  one  unassailable  ground  that  his  business  with  suffering 
and  sinful  humanity  was  the  stern  and  difficult  business  of 
redemption.  "  There  must  be  no  baptismal  service  that 
can  delude  any  one  into  a  vain  hope  of  getting  to  Heaven 
without  being  '  born  again.'  There  must  be  no  Lord's 
Supper  '  administered  '  by  anybody  in  such  a  way  as  to 
show  anything  like  a  priestly  superiority  of  one  over  an- 
other—  every  saved  person  being  'a.  priest  unto  God.'" 
He  came  to  suspect  symbolism,  and  to  dislike  the  very  sound 
of  the  word  Sacrament.  He  believed  that  men  are  only  too 
ready  to  adopt  excuses  for  idleness  in  the  spiritual  sphere; 
that  self -analysis  is  put  upon  one  side  by  a  great  majority 
of  those  who  lean  upon  Institutionalism ;  that  the  life  of 
asolute  self-sacrifice  and  entire  dependence  upon  God  is 
hindered  by  a  formalism  which  appears  to  set  a  priest  be- 
tween God  and  the  soul.  "  There  must  never  be  a  sacra- 
mental service  at  the  end  of  a  meeting  so  as  to  prevent  the 
possibility  of  inviting  sinners  to  the  mercy-seat."  Such 
communion  services  as  he  permitted  at  the  time  (1881)  — 
services  of  a  family  character  —  were  to  be  "  at  once  fol- 
lowed by  an  open-air  demonstration,  so  that  the  life  and 
death  pledge  may  be  acted  upon  immediately." 

Enough  has  been  said  to  make  it  quite  clear  that  William 
Booth  would  horrify  a  number  of  Christians  by  his  decision 
in  this  matter;  but  perhaps  enough  has  also  been  said  to 
show  how  this  same  decision  would  appeal  to  the  multi- 
tude who  hunger  and  thirst  for  personal  experience  in  re- 
ligion. 

If  the  Salvation  Army  offended  the  orthodox,  it  kindled 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  unorthodox.  If  the  orthodox  saw  in 
William  Booth  a  heretic,  the  unorthodox  hailed  him  as  one 


xxvni]  HOLY  COMMUNION  427 

who  spoke  with  authority,  and  not  as  the  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees. He  had  for  the  rehgious  world  some  such  divided 
force  as  marked  the  message  of  Carlyle  in  letters.  Carlyle, 
of  whom  Bagehot  said,  "  He  has  contradicted  the  floating 
paganism,  but  he  has  not  founded  the  deep  religion," 
troubled  the  distinguishing  mind  of  the  philosopher  and 
horrified  the  mind  steeped  in  Greek  culture;  but  he  filled 
with  a  wild  earnestness  the  middle  classes  and  the  democ- 
racy. William  Booth  had  to  choose  between  the  patronage 
of  the  orthodox  and  the  love  and  devotion  of  the  unortho- 
dox ;  that  is  to  say,  he  was  to  choose  between  saving  two  or 
three  and  saving  a  multitude.  Just  as  Carlyle  to  the  young 
men  of  the  middle  classes  appeared  to  be  a  prophet  raised 
up  by  God  and  Goethe,  for  the  moral  resurrection  of 
England,  so  to  depressed  multitudes  of  this  country,  William 
Booth  by  his  rejection  of  orthodox  conformity  and  by  his 
unsparing  insistence  on  the  need  of  a  changed  will,  a 
cleansed  heart,  and  a  new  spirit,  appeared  to  be  the 
authentic  voice  of  God. 

Here  was  a  man  bold  enough  to  preach  the  nothingness 
of  this  world,  the  vanity  of  riches  and  honour,  the  folly  of 
ambition  and  greed,  the  absolute  dead  unprofitableness  of 
gaining  the  whole  world ;  and  this  thunderous  preacher 
proclaimed  the  equality  of  every  man  in  the  sight  of  God, 
declared  that  no  pagan  beauty,  no  mystic  rite,  no  tender 
symbolism  from  the  poetry  of  superstition  could  set  a  soul 
right  in  the  eyes  of  the  Almighty  Judge,  commanded  all 
those  whose  wills  were  surrendered  and  whose  hearts  were 
cleansed,  to  go  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the  naked,  visit 
the  sick,  and  sell  all  they  had  and  give  to  the  poor. 

This  was  a  religion  that  the  multitude  could  imderstand. 
William  Booth,  in  the  opinion  of  some,  would  have  cut  but 
a  poor  and  needy  figure  in  a  roomful  of  orthodox  theo- 
logians: let  us  reflect,  however,  that  orthodox  theologians 
would  have  cut  figures  as  poor  and  needy  in  the  slums  of 
Whitechapel.  The  subtleties  of  theology,  the  brilliant 
casuistry  of  the  schools,  the  marvellous  adaptations  of  the 
religious  conscience  to  every  fresh  destruction  of  science 
and  criticism  —  these  things  are,  of  necessity,  a  maze  of 
words,  a  folly  of  language,  to  the  man  in  the  dark  places 


428  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  civilization.  Yet  to  the  most  sunken  and  depressed  of 
the  human  race,  so  great  a  miracle  as  conversion  seems  a 
reasonable  and  a  truthful  condition  of  religion.  To  the 
most  sunken  and  depressed  of  mankind,  the  possibility  of 
an  immense  inward  change  is  no  absurdity  and  no  delusion. 
William  Booth  made  a  demand  w^hich  the  most  erudite  of 
theologians  would  have  trembled  to  make,  and  he  addressed 
that  demand,  without  compromise  or  equivocation  of  any 
kind,  to  the  most  unhappy  and  the  most  obstinate  and  the 
most  sinful  of  the  human  race. 

It  will  be  seen,  then,  that  in  first  relegating  the  Sacra- 
ments to  an  unimportant  position,  and  then  definitely 
abandoning  their  observance,  the  real  object  of  William 
Booth  was  to  lay  every  emphasis  in  his  power  on  the 
central  necessity  of  conversion.  This  central  necessity  was 
the  heart  and  soul  of  his  teaching;  it  was  the  doctrine 
which  he  held  from  first  to  last,  which  he  never  questioned, 
and  which  he  never  modified;  there  could  be  no  salvation 
for  sinful  man  without  a  new  birth. 

But  rightfully  to  understand  the  position  of  William 
Booth  it  must  be  carefully  remembered  that  he  was  helped 
to  this  relinquishment  of  the  Sacrament  by  the  two  young 
men  who  most  ardently  supported  his  crusade.  He  was 
influenced  by  Bramwell  Booth  and  by  George  Railton  to 
abandon  the  rite;  he  came  to  the  conclusion  that  these 
men  had  formed  a  true  judgment;  he  flung  himself  more 
heartily  than  ever  into  the  work  of  a  preacher  who  sees 
the  beginning  of  real  religion  in  the  changed  heart  of  the 
sinner,  but,  nevertheless,  to  the  end  of  his  days  there  were 
moments  when  he  looked  almost  wistfully  to  the  Sacra- 
ment of  the  Supper,  and  there  were  moments  when  he 
appears  to  have  doubted,  if  only  transiently,  the  wisdom  of 
his  decision. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  among  the  Anglicans  who 
showed  a  kindly  attitude  towards  William  Booth  in  the 
early  'eighties,  were  the  greatest  of  her  scholars,  the  most 
picturesque,  if  not  the  extremest,  of  her  High  Churchmen, 
and,  in  the  person  of  Canon  Liddon,  the  most  eloquent  of 
her  preachers.  Dr.  Westcott  and  Dr.  Lightfoot  had  words 
of  encouragement   for  the  Salvation  Army;  Dr.   Benson, 


xxviii]  HOLY  COMMUNION  429 

then  Bishop  of  Truro,  and  soon  to  be  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, took  pains  to  establish  a  friendly  understanding  with 
William  Booth.  The  two  men  met,  and  corresponded  with 
each  other.  Dr.  Benson  was  impressed  by  General  Booth's 
personality,  and  sought  earnestly  to  gain  from  him  a  con- 
cession on  this  particular  question  of  the  Eucharist. 
The  following  letters  will  show  the  reader  that  while  Wil- 
liam Booth  had  expressed  admiration  for  the  Anglican 
Church,  Dr.  Benson  applauded  his  decision  not  to  celebrate 
the  Sacraments.  The  concession  which  Dr.  Benson  sought 
to  gain  from  General  Booth  was  not  granted,  and  in  1889  a 
correspondence  took  place  on  the  same  subject  with  a  like 
result. 

The  Bishop  of  Truro  to  General  Booth. 

Lollard's  Tower,  Lambeth  Palace, 
May  24,  1882. 

My  dear  Sir  —  I  should  consider  it  a  great  favour  if  I  might 
be  allowed  the  opportunity  of  some  conversation  with  you  on 
practical  subjects  of  religious  work. 

Dr.  Westcott,  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity,  at  Cambridge, 
is  also  anxious  to  be  allowed  to  hear  your  experience  in  such 
important  matters. 

May  I  venture  to  name  twelve  o'clock  to-morrow  as  an  hour 
at  which  we  could  call,  with  your  kind  permission,  in  Victoria 
Street. 

I  need  scarcely  express  to  you  the  interest  with  which  your 
work  in  Cornwall  inspires  me. —  Yours  very  faithfully,  Dear 
Sir, 

E.  W.  Truron. 

The  Bishop  of  Truro  to  General  Booth. 

June  26,  1882. 

My  dear  Sir  —  I  sincerely  thank  you  for  the  very  kind  and 
friendly  letter  which  I  received  from  you  on  the  subject  of  our 
conversation  (for  which  I  owe  you  most  sincere  thanks),  and 
of  the  further  considerations  which  have  suggested  themselves 
to  you. 

1  have  to  thank  you  also  for  the  account  of  the  service  which 
the  Bishop  of  Bedford  held  with  your  people  —  a  service  of 
which  I  read  the  report  with  intense  interest  and  satisfaction. 

I  need  not  assure  you  that  I  watch  so  large  and  special  a 
work  with  anxious  solicitude  as  well  as  interest.  God  has 
indeed  in  a  marvellous  way  placed  a  multitude  of  souls  under 


430  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

your  influence,  and  I  pray  often  for  your  own  spiritual  peace, 
and  that  all  may  issue  to  God's  growing  glory  among  the 
masses. 

It  is  indeed  patent  that  an  Army  is  not  a  whole  Kingdom  — 
that  soldiers  have  citizens  for  their  object  and  care  —  and 
that  the  building  up  of  themselves  as  citizens  is  a  duty  which 
it  is  not  safe  for  them  to  forget. 

Nevertheless  the  state  of  Society  is  in  many  ways  abnormal. 
In  many  districts  the  lowest  classes  have  fallen  into  a  condi- 
tion resulting  from  many  combined  causes  of  neglect,  and  the 
devising  of  Christian  remedies  for  that  condition  has  exercised 
and  severely  tasked  the  energies  of  the  most  devoted  sons  of 
the  Church. 

However  anxious,  therefore,  about  different  methods,  the 
Church  cannot  but  be  thankful  —  even  if  it  rejoices  with  trem- 
bling —  to  see  your  work  avowedly  based  on  principles  which 
to  so  great  an  extent  accord  with  her  own  first  principles  — 
thorough  repentance  —  personal  faith  in  a  personal  Saviour  — 
holiness  of  Hfe. 

She  herself  has  received  through  the  Bible  this  system  for 
the  building  up  and  building  together  of  mankind,  which 
recognises  for  this  life,  the  power  of  the  Sacraments  of  Christ ; 
and  she  vividly  experiences  that  power.  It  is  for  her  impos- 
sible to  feel  that  what  I  have  called  citizenship  can  be  com- 
plete without  them.  At  the  same  time,  I  am  able  to  under- 
stand how  the  call  you  have  to  make  to  the  dechristianised  and 
degraded  may  be  conducted  by  you  without  express  teaching 
on  those  Institutions,  and  rejoice  that  you  so  firmly  hold  that 
it  is  no  business  or  part  of  your  own  system  to  administer 
them.  Here  is  to  be  recognised  an  immense  difference  be- 
tween the  Salvation  Army  and  the  sects  which  have  adopted 
an  imitation  of  the  Sacramental  system. 

One  thing  I  do  look  to  with  great  anxiety  —  namely,  that  the 
Church  people  who  follow  with  you  —  or  others  who,  following 
with  you,  may  desire  to  communicate  in  Church,  should  not  be 
debarred  by  compulsory  arrangements  of  your  own  from  the 
partaking  of  the  Communion  with  their  brethren.  This  is 
surely  not  unreasonable,  and  applies  also  to  those  who  belong 
to  any  Christian  body,  and  is  as  reasonable  for  them  as  for  us. 

It  is  not  that  you  should  admit  within  your  borders  the  cele- 
bration of  sacraments,  not  that  you  should  make  positive 
arrangements  for  the  communicating  of  your  people,  but  that 
counter  arrangements  should  not  be  made  which  would  render 
their  Hfe  of  communion  impossible. 

In  writing  this,  I  can,  of  course,  speak  only  as  an  individual. 
But  I  am  sure  you  know  that  our  intercourse  is  not  "  of  guile," 
but  "  in  simplicity  of  godly  sincerity." —  There  is  no  worldly 
desire  that  "  we  should  reap  where   we  have  not  sown  "  or 


xxviii]  HOLY  COMMUNION  431 

"  stretch  ourselves  into  another  man's  boundary."  I  desire  to 
appreciate  and  recognise  what  God  works  by  you  in  those 
difficult  regions  of  life.  And  you  have  assured  me  how  much 
you  value  our  working  for  the  "  edification  of  the  Body  of 
Christ." 

May  all  who  have  received  a  gift  from  the  Lord,  by  prayer 
and  sympathy  and  fellow-working,  help  on  each  the  other's 
grace ;  so  that  we  may  severally  render  in  our  account  with  joy 
for  our  service  to  Christ  in  His  Body  and  His  Spouse. — 
Believe  me,  my  dear  Sir,  Your  faithful  servant  in  the  Lord, 

E.  W.  Truron. 

The  decision  of  General  Booth  not  to  grant  the  con- 
cession suggested  to  him  in  so  warm  and  kindly  a  spirit 
by  Dr.  Benson  was  arrived  at,  as  we  have  said,  after  con- 
siderable discussion  with  Catherine  Booth  and  Bramwell 
Booth  and  Railton.  It  was  not  so  unreasonable  as  it  may 
seem  at  the  first  glance.  William  Booth  was  not  animated 
by  the  least  feeling  of  animosity  or  antagonism  to  the 
Church  of  England;  he  was  not  even  swayed,  so  far  as  I 
can  discover,  by  the  fear  of  any  "  Romanizing  "  influence. 
He  reached  his  decision  on  the  very  logical  ground  of  the 
Salvation  Army's  essential  unity.  To  grant  the  concession 
would  have  been  to  admit  an  incompletion,  a  fragmentary 
character,  in  the  message  of  the  Salvation  Army.  He  could 
not  allow  his  converts  to  go  to  the  Church  for  Holy  Com- 
munion without  making  the  destructive  admission  that  the 
Salvation  Army  lacked  an  essential  of  salvation.  His  stand 
was  definitely  upon  the  central  rock  of  conversion.  Con- 
version w^as  the  unum  necessarium,  and  after  conversion 
there  was  nothing  but  a  life  of  unselfish  devotion. 

Of  all  the  many  movements  in  the  mind  of  this  strange 
and  troubled  man,  none  strikes  us  so  sharply  and  so  illumi- 
natingly  as  the  movement  towards  this  definite  and  binding 
rule  —  a  rule  made  with  an  iron  rigidity  on  the  surface, 
made  with  an  uncompromising  forcefulness  in  public,  but 
accompanied  in  the  depths  of  his  consciousness  by  an  oc- 
casional disturbance  and  disquiet  of  uncertainty. 

In  an  interview  with  Sir  Henry  Lunn,  published  in  1895, 
William  Booth  made  the  following  statement  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  Sacraments : 

"  In  the  first  place,  we  do  not  consider  that  the  Sacrament*; 


432  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

are  essentials  of  salvation,  and  in  this  matter,  as  I  know  quite 
well,'!  have  with  me  some  of  the  most  eminent  members  of  the 
English  Episcopal  bench,  who  have  admitted  to  me,  in  con- 
versation, that  they  would  never  dare  to  say  that  a  man  who 
had  not  been  baptized,  and  not  received  the  Lord's  Supper, 
could  not  enter  Heaven.  We  hold  that,  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity,  with  or  without  any 
formulae  or  ceremonies,  will  carry  a  man  into  Heaven. 

"  Secondly.  With  reference  to  the  question  as  to  our  Lord's 
intention  to  institute  these  as  permanent  ceremonies  in  the 
Church,  we  reply  that  there  are  other  ordinances  that  are 
apparently  commands  of  a  similar  character  which  the  Church 
has  universally  agreed  in  not  observing.  The  most  striking 
example  of  that  is  the  command  to  wash  one  another's  feet. 
In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  St.  John  our  Lord  says,  '  I  have 
given  you  an  example  that  ye  should  do  as  I  have  done  to  you. 
If  I  your  Lord  and  Master  have  washed  your  feet,  ye  should 
also  wash  one  another's  feet.'  We  stand  in  relation  to  the 
ordinances  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  where  the  whole 
Church  stands  to-day  in  relation  to  many  customs  which  were 
prevalent  in  the  Apostolic  days. 

"  Thirdly.  We  came  into  this  position  originally  by  deter- 
mining not  to  be  a  Church.  We  did  not  wish  to  undertake  the 
administration  of  the  Sacraments,  and  thereby  bring  ourselves 
into  collision  with  existing  Churches. 

"  Fourthly.  We  were  further  driven  to  take  up  our  present 
position  by  clergymen  of  the  Church  of  England  refusing  to 
administer  the  rite  to  our  Soldiers  because  they  had  not  gone 
through  the  form  of  Confirmation.  This  created  difficulties 
which  seemed  to  me  only  to  be  solved  by  the  declaration  of 
my  own  conviction  that  these  Sacraments  were  not  essential 
to  salvation. 

"  Fifthly.  We  have  found  the  existing  notions  with  refer- 
ence to  these  ordinances  seriously  interfering  with  the  incul- 
cation of  right  views  of  penitence  and  holy  living.  Men  and 
women  are  constantly  in  danger  of  putting  their  trust  in  ordi- 
nances, and  thinking  that  baptized  communicants  must  be  in 
a  secure  position,  no  matter  how  inconsistently  they  are  living. 
This  leads  us  to  say  that  as  circumcision  is  nothing,  so  bap- 
tism is  nothing  —  but  the  keeping  the  commandment  of  God. 
We  attach  great  importance  to  that  wonderful  statement  of 
John  the  Baptist,  '  I  indeed  baptize  you  with  water  .  .  .  but 
.  .  .  He  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  fire.' 
"  Sixthly.  Moreover,  I  should  like  to  emphasize  the  fact 
that  this  with  us  is  not  a  settled  question.  We  never  declaim 
against  the  Sacraments ;  we  never  even  state  our  own  position. 
We  are  anxious  not  to  destroy  the  confidence  of  Christian  peo- 
ple in  institutions  which  are  helpful  to  them." 


XXVIII]  HOLY  COMMUNION  433 

"  Do  you  substitute  anything,"  I  asked  the  General,  "  for 
the  Sacraments  ?  " 

"  Only  so  far,"  he  said,  "  as  to  urge  our  Soldiers  in  every 
meal  they  take  to  remember,  as  they  break  the  bread,  the 
broken  body  of  our  Lord,  and  as  they  drink  the  cup.  His  shed 
blood ;  and  every  time  they  wash  the  body  to  remember  that 
the  soul  can  only  be  cleansed  by  the  purifying  Blood  of 
Christ." 

"  Your  discipline  is  so  very  strong,  General,  that  I  should 
like  to  ask  one  or  two  other  questions  on  this  point.  Would 
you  be  willing  to  sanction  your  Soldiers  being  baptized  and 
partaking  of  the  Lord's  Supper  if  they  desired?" 

To  this  the  General  gave  an  unqualified  answer  in  the  af- 
firmative. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

HOSTILITY,    SUSPICION,    AND   OPPOSITION 

I 877-1 88 I 

In  the  year  1880  General  Booth  described  the  Salvation 
Army  in  these  words :  "  We  are  moral  scavengers,  netting 
the  very  sewers." 

This  impulse  was  purely  evangelical ;  it  did  not  become 
what  is  called  humanitarian  or  economic  till  ten  years  later. 
At  its  beginning,  the  Salvation  Army  was  a  society  of  men 
and  women  which  existed  only  to  preach  the  repentance  of 
sins.  William  Booth  did  not  ask  himself  why  moral 
scavengers  were  necessary;  he  did  not  ask  of  the  State  and 
of  Society  why  humanity  got  itself  into  sewers;  he  saw 
multitudes  of  people  perishing  in  a  great  darkness,  and  he 
set  himself  by  every  means  in  his  power  to  rescue  these 
myriad  sinners  from  the  destructive  consequences  of  sin. 
"  We  want  all  we  can  get,"  was  his  cry  in  1880,  "  but  we 
want  the  lowest  of  the  low." 

In  order  to  reach  the  bottommost  multitude,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  he  adopted  methods  which  were  entirely 
foreign  to  the  religious  sphere.  These  methods,  while  they 
created  for  him  an  almost  instantaneous  popularity  among 
people  whose  hearts  were  breaking  for  passion  and  intensity, 
brought  him  into  immediate  collision  with  the  orthodox  and 
the  mob. 

It  can  very  easily  be  imagined  that  the  methods  of  the 
Salvation  Army  would  shock  public  taste;  but  no  charge 
can  be  laid  against  William  Booth  on  the  score  of  failing 
to  foresee  this  antagonism,  since  his  first  purpose  was  to 
shock,  to  startle,  and  arouse. 

To  a  letter  of  criticism  from  Lady  Cairns,^  General  Booth 
could  rightfully  base  his  reply  on  the  success  of  his  methods. 
"  Why  do  not  those,"  he  asked,  "  whose  criticisms.  I  fear, 
influence  you.  and  hold  back  the  heart  and  co-operation 

iWife  of  Earl  Cairns,  the  then  Lord  Chancellor. 

434 


[CHAP.  XXIX]      HOSTILITY  AND  OPPOSITIOx\        435 

of  other  friends  —  why  do  not  these  who  evidently  under- 
stand so  much  better  than  we  do  how  the  work  should  be 
done,  set  to  work  and  do  it  in  their  improved  fashion  ?  .  .  . 
Let  them  enter  the  great  manufacturing  towns  or  grapple 
with  the  rowdy  classes  of  the  cities  or  attack  the  godless 
crowds  of  poor  Ireland.  .  .  .  Till  they  do  this,  and  do  it 
more  successfully  than  does  the  Salvation  Army,  I  do  hope 
they  will  cease  their  efforts  to  draw  off  by  their  fears  and 
suggestions  the  hearts  and  sympathies  and  co-operation  of 
the   few   friends  the   Salvation   Army  possesses." 

But  General  Booth  failed  to  realize  that  his  methods, 
however  successful  with  the  poor  and  depressed,  must  cer- 
tainly create  an  almost  justifiable  suspicion  in  the  minds 
of  those  who  knew  nothing  of  his  personal  history.  To 
thousands  of  people  the  man  William  Booth  was  only  a 
name,  and  helped  by  rumour  and  slander  that  name  very 
soon  stood  for  those  things  that  were  hateful  and  noxious 
in  their  idea  of  religion  —  for  quackery,  imposture,  and 
cant. 

To  those  acquainted  with  his  history,  and  of  course  to 
those  who  knew  him  personally,  this  hatred  of  the  public 
was  both  cruel  and  inexplicable.  But  the  public  knew 
nothing  of  his  early  preaching  in  the  streets  of  Nottingham, 
knew  nothing  of  his  revival  services  as  a  Wesleyan,  knew 
nothing  of  his  long  struggle  to  work  loyally  with  a  regular 
Church;  and  they  knew  nothing  of  his  superb  honesty,  his 
heroic  courage  under  physical  suffering,  his  noble  devotion 
to  his  wife  and  children,  his  burning  sympathy  with  the 
poor  and  depressed.  To  them  the  man  had  sprung  up  sud- 
denly, without  background  and  without  roots;  there  he 
was,  for  the  world's  coarse  thumb  and  finger  —  a  middle- 
aged  tub-thumper,  a  brazen-faced  charlatan,  a  pious  rogue, 
a  masquerading  hypocrite,  a  cunning  scoundrel.  What  was 
his  object?  Money  —  the  object  of  every  man.  Why  did 
he  dress  up  in  a  uniform  and  order  a  band  to  play  in  front 
of  him  ?  To  attract  fools  —  like  a  clever  cheap  Jack. 
What  happened  in  those  precious  prayer-meetings  and  holi- 
ness meetings?  Better  not  ask  ;  hysterical  religion  drags  the 
soul  into  a  veritable  pit  of  iniquity. 

It  is  scarcely  possible  to  exaggerate  the  gross  slanders 


436  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

that  were  circulated  concerning  General  Booth  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Salvation  Army;  when  the  history  of  the  Sal- 
vation Army  comes  to  be  written  and  the  story  of  those 
early  days  is  told  in  full,  men  will  be  amazed  by  the  dreadful 
nature  of  these  calumnies.  But  we  are  inclined  to  insist, 
in  writing  the  narrative  of  General  Booth's  life,  that  there 
was  some  excuse  for  the  world's  antagonism,  some  justifi- 
cation for  the  mob's  suspicion  of  his  honesty.  We  do  not 
take  the  view,  even  when  we  assert  that  his  purpose  was 
to  startle  and  shock,  even  when  we  emphasize  his  deter- 
mination to  reach  the  masses  at  all  costs,  that  William 
Booth  possessed  those  qualities  which  immediately  disarm 
suspicion  and  immediately  create  a  feeling  of  devoted  con- 
fidence. Those  qualities  he  did  possess,  we  think,  in  his 
early  days,  and  they  existed  for  all  those  who  knew  him 
intimately  to  the  end  of  his  life;  but  in  the  'eighties  he  was 
a  public  man  conscious  of  difficulties,  a  Pope  Frankenstein 
bewildered  by  the  Monster  Church  of  his  creation,  an  elderly 
statesman  who  looked  ahead  and  who  knew  the  danger, 
without  appreciating  the  enormous  value,  of  his  head- 
strong and  impulsive  nature. 

He  was  not  by  any  means  an  entirely  confident  and  always 
rejoicing  General.  Much  of  the  confidence  of  those  early 
days  seems  to  have  sprung  from  Bramwell  Booth  and  Rail- 
ton  —  younger  men,  who  had  caught  the  passion  of  his  idea 
with  the  souls  of  youth  and  the  almost  laughing  gallantry 
of  adventure.  When  the  General  was  disturbed  by 
criticism,  they  rubbed  their  hands  and  rejoiced  at  "  a  good 
advertisement."  Where  the  General  appeared  to  lead  and 
to  thunder  challenges,  one  finds  these  men  at  his  back, 
urging  him  forward,  sometimes  putting  the  very  words 
into  his  mouth.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  Sal- 
vation Army  would  never  have  spread  so  immediately  over 
the  world,  and  never  so  violently  have  aroused  the  animosity 
of  the  Churches  and  the  mob,  if  William  Booth  had  relied 
solely  upon  his  own  judgment.  There  was  a  strange  and 
often  really  charming  diffidence  about  the  man,  a  shrinking 
from  anything  in  the  nature  of  self -aggrandisement,  a  real 
loathing  of  public  parades,  and  as  real  a  love  of  quiet, 
privacy,  and  repose.     He  objected  to  the  title  of  "  Gen- 


A  CARTOON  PUBLISHED  IN  VANITY  FAIR  (1882) 


XXIX]  HOSTILITY  AND  OPPOSITION  437 

eral,"  for  example,  and  had  to  be  persuaded  by  others  to 
use  it  publicly  for  the  good  of  the  Army.  The  first  printed 
note-paper  of  the  Salvation  Army  bore  the  words,  "  Gen- 
eral William  Booth,"  and  on  receiving  a  sheet  of  it  he  drew 
a  circle  round  the  word  "  General,"  placing  it  after  his 
name,  and  writing  above  it,  to  Bramwell  Booth,  "  Can't 
this  form  be  altered?  It  looks  pretentions."  He  was  a 
man  carried  along  on  wheels  which  he  himself  had  set  in 
motion,  but  whose  momentum  he  had  not  clearly  foreseen. 

While  it  is  important  to  realize  this  element  of  caution 
in  his  character,  it  is  also  important  to  bear  in  mind  that 
he  exercised  despotic  powers  and  was  jealous  of  any  en- 
croachment on  them.  Even  the  well-beloved  son,  who  was 
perhaps  the  only  man  in  the  Army  able  to  confront  the 
wrath  of  the  General,  frequently  found  himself  called  over 
the  coals.  Unwilhng  to  announce  himself  publicly  as  '*  The 
General,"  William  Booth  was  in  no  doubt  as  to  his  gen- 
eralship. He  ruled,  and  he  ruled  like  an  autocrat,  suffer- 
ing no  one  to  neglect  his  decisions;  but  in  looking  ahead, 
in  legislating  for  the  future,  in  meeting  a  crisis,  he  was 
more  than  ready  to  confer  with  his  wife,  his  son,  and  his 
first  Commissioner. 

Bramwell  Booth  describes  his  father  at  this  period  as 
watching  the  movement.  William  Booth  was  convinced  of 
one  thing,  that  the  movement  was  not  a  mission,  but  an 
army.  He  said  frequently  at  this  time :  "  We  have  not  set 
up  a  new  sect;  we  have  raised  an  army,  we  are  making  a 
force  " ;  and  his  anxiety  was  so  great  for  this  new  thing 
in  religious  life  that  he  felt  the  necessity  of  watching  it. 
Quite  by  an  accident  the  Salvation  Army  was  established  first 
in  America  and  then  in  Australia.  Commissioner  Railton 
was  enthusiastic  about  these  developments,  but  it  was  some 
time  before  the  General  ventured  to  send  Officers  out  of 
England  to  claim  and  unify  his  foreign  detachments.  He 
was  quite  as  headlong  and  courageous  as  the  others  when 
a  step  was  once  taken,  but  it  was  in  no  headlong  spirit 
that  he  arrived  at  any  decision  which  involved  fresh  action. 

Public  antagonism  troubled  Mrs.  Booth  deeply,  but 
chiefly  because  it  came  from  religious  people.  General 
Booth  himself  was  not  greatly  disturbed  by  these  attacks; 


438  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  not  incHned  to  treat  them 
so  light-heartedly  as  his  son  treated  them.  In  the  letters 
which  follow  it  will  be  seen  that  here  and  there  practices 
of  the  Salvation  Army  annoyed  him,  and  that  he  set  his 
face  against  tactics  which  gave  the  enemy  a  handle  for 
criticism.  He  was  watching  the  movement,  and  he  saw 
difficulties  and  dangers.  To  challenge  the  world  was  right 
and  necessary,  but  to  annoy  the  world  was  foolish  and 
hazardous. 

We  are  disposed,  on  the  whole,  to  think  that  the  public 
of  that  period  might  be  forgiven  for  their  suspicion  and 
dislike  of  the  Salvation  Army.  The  thing  was  not  only 
new,  but  violently  new ;  and  the  history  of  the  man  who 
had  brought  this  violently  new  thing  into  being  was  quite 
unknown.  It  was  never  understood  by  the  public  that  the 
Salvation  Army  was  the  work  of  a  man  who  from  his  very 
youth  had  hungered  and  thirsted  to  reach  the  masses  with 
the  Message  of  the  Cross.  To  half  the  public  he  was  a 
seeker  of  notoriety;  to  the  other  half,  an  impostor  lining 
his  own  purse.  And  it  may  be  said  at  once  that  some  of 
the  devices  adopted  by  his  first  converts  —  devices  of  which 
he  disapproved  when  he  came  to  hear  of  them  —  was  such 
as  to  scandalize  judicious  opinion. 

The  main  fault  of  the  public,  as  we  see  the  matter,  lay 
first  in  the  eagerness  with  which  it  listened  to  slander; 
second,  in  its  stupid  unwillingness  to  understand  the  cause 
and  significance  of  a  movement  which,  with  all  its  faults, 
was  at  least  making  for  righteousness.  But  whether  the 
public  was  to  blame,  or  whether  General  Booth  might  have 
done  something  more  effective  to  explain  his  purpose  to  the 
world,  certain  is  it  that  the  Army  came  into  sharp  and 
dangerous  collision  with  public  opinion,  and  it  is  this  his- 
torical fact  which  the  reader  must  bear  in  mind  when  fol- 
lowing the  story  of  these  years.  The  Salvation  Army 
discovered  a  devil  in  England,  and  the  brutality  with  which 
it  was  assailed  by  the  mob,  and  the  venomous  attacks  which 
it  encountered  from  many  orthodox  religious  people,  are 
phenomena  of  the  times  which  seem  to  justify  William 
Booth  in  his  effort  to  Christianize  the  country  at  almost  any 
cost. 


XXIX]  HOSTILITY  AND  OPPOSITION  439 

The  first  letters  are  addressed  to  his  son,  Bramwell 
Booth,  and  begin  with  the  year  1877: 

272  Whitechapel  Rd., 

7/3/77- 

...  I  spent  most  of  my  time  trying  to  take  the  conceit  out 

of  ,  and  succeeded  a  little,  I  hope.     He  is  a  dear  good 

fellow,  but  capable  of  doing  six  times  as  much  good  as  he  is 
doing.  Of  course  I  can't  forget  that  I  have  changed  myself 
very  much  the  last  few  months  and  look  on  things  quite  differ- 
ently ;  indeed,  I  have  gone  back  to  where  I  started. 

I  worked  hard  on  Sunday  and  did  it  with  ease,  and  I  am 
persuaded  did  ten  times  the  good  I  should  have  done  if  I  had 
simply  preached  and  done  all  the  business  myself. 

Ours  is  the  co-operative  plan,  and  the  main  idea  should  be 
to  make  the  most  we  can  of  every  man.  People  have  100 
times  the  interest  in  a  meeting  in  which  they  do  something 
themselves.  Now  at  Portsmouth  I  saw  clearly  that  the  talk- 
ing outside  and  in  was  done  by  some  six  or  nine  persons  over 
and  over  again.  I  got  a  Soldier  baptized  and  blessed  and  he 
spoke  with  more  influence  than  any  of  them,  and  he  will  make 

a  fine  intelligent  fellow.     There  is  a  Mrs.  C there  who 

got  very  much  blessed ;  she  is  a  magnificent  woman,  capable  of 
doing  any  amount  of  work  and  doing  it  far  more  effectually 

than  either  or  ,  only  wants  leading.     The  lot  speak 

too  long,  five  minutes  is  plenty ;  this,  with  sharp  singing  and 
remarks  of  faith,  etc.,  thrown  in  from  a  spirited  leader  who 
moves  and  lifts,  will  set  any  Mission  Congregation  on  a  flame. 
Then  by  dropping  sharp  into  a  P.M.  [prayer-meeting]  you  will 
catch  something,  and  you,  the  leader,  are  comparatively  fresh 
for  talking  as  needed  through  the  night.  ...  I  don't  say  give 
up  preaching ;  no !  no !  no !  I  preached  all  the  time.  .  .  .  But 
you  must  have  a  leader  and  you  must  have  a  band  of  men  who 
are  "  alive."  Of  course  a  sentimental,  dead  affair  like  Hast- 
ings came  to  be  contemptible. 

The  philosophy  of  success  is  "live"  meetings. —  Let  us  have 
them.  Give  up  the  Shopkeepers  and  Methodists  and  trust  the 
VULGAR  CROWD.  Let  US  pour  contempt  on  our  "  ministerial 
helpers  "  and  mend  or  end  them. 

I  enclose  's  letters.     I  wrote  him  very  plainly  indeed, 

and  told  him  the  only  way  in  which  he  could  walk  in  harmony 
with  me  was  in  carrying  out  my  zvishes,  and  I  told  him  I 
doubted  him,  because  I  had  heard  of  his  magic-lantern  enter- 
tainment, and  that  was  being  off  my  lines.  .  .  .  Of  course  I 
have,  as  I  said  before,  winked  at  and  admitted  a  lot  of  this 
Chapel  business,  and  now  all  at  once  I  pour  contempt  on  it 
and  insist  on  its  stopping;  the  men  are  a  little  amazed.  .  .  . 


440  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

19/3/77- 

...  I  did  not  go  out  afternoon.  R.  did  and  got  a  nasty- 
crack  on  his  bare  head  with  a  heavy  stone.  ,  .  . 

.  .  .  You  can  announce  him  with  confidence.  Dog-trainer, 
not  fighter ;  has  kept  a  brothel  and  public. 

...  I  am  inquiring  for  an  American  watch.  The  American 
meat  is  so  first-rate  I  want  to  try  the  watches. 

.  .  .  But  alas  we  have  all  our  men  to  make  over  again,  aye, 
and  women  too.  ...  I  never  saw  in  any  place  such  a  congre- 
gation as  we  have  had  at  Whitechapel  —  except  when  drawn  in 
by  loaves  and  fishes. 

In  1878  he  writes  to  the  same  son: 

.  .  .  Take  care  of  yourself  for  my  sake  and  my  love  for 
you.  I  can  understand  how  that  king  never  smiled  again  when 
he  lost  his  son.     What  should  I  do  if  I  lost  my  prince? 

May  13,  1878. 

...  I  am  pleased  with  Merthyr.  But  the  Hall-Keeper  was 
full  of  the  devil  yesterday,  would  not  let  us  have  enough  forms 
for  the  afternoon,  and  the  confusion  knocked  me  clean  off  —  I 
could  not  preach.  If  it  had  been  you,  you  would  have  con- 
cluded you  were  not  called,  and  given  up;  but  I  spat  on  my 
hands  and  went  at  it  again  at  night.  It  is  a  wonderful  work 
and  has  stirred  the  whole  town. 

.  .  .  Hold  on,  my  boy.  Wherever  I  follow  you  I  find  you 
have  left  blessing  behind  you,  and  people's  eyes  glisten  at  the 
hope  of  seeing  and  hearing  you  again. 

Mar.  16,  1877. 
I  wish  we  did  not  do  so  many  silly  things.     I  think  I  see  a 
great  difference  between  manly,  natural,  bold,  daring  action 
and  WEAK,  frivolous,  childish  comicality. 

This  is  perhaps  as  valuable  an  extract  as  can  be  found 
in  all  his  letters  of  that  period.  He  was  then  full  of  energy 
and  courage  and  direction;  he  was  not  yet  overawed  by 
the  immense  popularity  of  the  Army;  he  had  not  yet  come 
face  to  face  with  the  bitter  and  brutal  opposition  of  the 
mob;  he  was  not  watching  —  he  was  leading.  And  here, 
at  the  threshold  of  his  crusade,  the  vigorous  common  sense 
of  the  man  declares  against  "  silly  things,"  against  anything 
which  is  merely  *"  weak,  frivolous,  childish  comicality," 
while  he  insists  upon  the  Tightness  of  "  manly,  natural,  bold, 
daring  action." 


XXIX]  HOSTILITY  AND  OPPOSITION  441 

A  letter  from  Commissioner  Railton  to  the  Chief  of  the 
Staff,  dated  March,  1879,  shows  rather  amusingly  that  the 
Army  has  not  yet  by  any  means  perfected  its  organization. 
He  speaks  of  some  one  whose  accounts  ought  to  be  seen 
into,  and  speaks  of  another  Officer  who  wishes  to  hand 
over  money  and  settle  accounts,  but  who  cannot  get  atten- 
tion from  Headquarters.  "  Says  he,  '  It's  a  temptation  to  a 
fellow  when  he  wants  trousers.'  " 

Many  of  the  Officers,  we  may  say,  were  working  for  a 
wage  of  sixteen  shillings  a  week,  enduring  with  the  utmost 
cheerfulness  very  great  privations,  and  conducting  cam- 
paigns in  the  worst  quarters  of  crowded  cities  with  a  courage 
difficult  to  overpraise.  There  is  no  doubt  that  General 
Booth's  appreciation  of  this  wonderful  devotion  helped  him 
to  take  an  indulgent  view  of  extravagances  which,  while 
they  gained  attention,  undoubtedly  made  enemies  for  the 
Salvation  Army. 

In  1879  trouble  began  seriously  to  manifest  itself  from 
the  mob.  In  June  of  that  year  the  General  whites  to  Rail- 
ton  and  his  son : 

Things  came  to  a  crisis  yesterday.  Roughs  climbed  back- 
walls,  opened  doors,  filled  up  and  took  possession.  Tucker 
closed  after  he  lost  command,  but  they  would  not  go  —  shook 
the  gallery  front,  shied  the  hat-rails,  top  of  pews,  and  book- 
boards,  etc.,  about.  Police  refused  to  come  in.  Tucker  &  Co. 
cleared  the  centre  of  bottom  themselves,  by  which  time  a 
Superintendent  with  a  force  arrived  and  the  rest  cleared  out. 
It  was  awful.  Brydel  was  struck  —  one  man  in  custody  for 
this  and  another  for  a  drunken  pitch  in  our  Saturday.  Tucker 
hurried  back  to  appear.  Our  lot  are  thoroughly  cowed,  lay 
and  cleric.  Lasses  are  afraid  of  open  air,  our  lads  want  to  be 
removed  —  machine  no  use  —  Tucker  feels  himself  alone. 

A  lot  of  filthy  half-drunk  fellows  came  on  purpose  to  make 
a  row.  .  .  .  We  ought  to  try  and  make  Paton  help  us.  Two 
constables  inside  would  do  it ;  as  it  is.  the  constables  openly 
encourage  the  roughs  to  resist.  .  .  .  Who  could  help  us?  Our 
friends,  unfortunately  for  this  job,  are  all  liberals. 

But  he  has  glimpses  of  patronage  and  popularity.  From 
Wick  Hall,  Brighton,  he  writes  to  his  boys  in  October, 
1879: 

We  got  here.     A  mansion.     First-class  style.     For  the  sake 


442  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

of  the  Army  and  the  souls  of  the  people  I  sat  fully  one  hour 
and  a  half  over  12  courses  of  dinner  with  half  a  dozen  worldly, 
godless  people!  The  major  did  not  dine  with  us,  and  hoped 
we  should  be  useful  to  his  poor  relatives,  one  a  captain  and 
the  other  a  "  Vicar  "  over  70  with  a  young  wife  not  more  than 
2^.     I  tried  to  talk  —  but,  oh  ! 

The  two  gents  are  out  hunting  this  morning. 

.  .  .  The  major  gave  me  £30  this  morning  to  go  on  with. 
He  said  we  can't  carry  on  without  plenty  of  powder.  I  had 
already  informed  him  of  that  fact. 

Trouble  arose  over  the  printing  of  the  first  issue  of  The 
War  Cry,  and  the  General  w^as  by  no  means  enamoured  of 
his  first  efforts  as  a  printer.  He  writes  to  Mr.  Railton  in 
December,  1879: 

.  .  .  We  have  had  a  lot  of  perplexities.  Last  night,  nearly 
II,  after  varied  attempts  to  print  we  condemned  engine  as 
being  utterly  useless  and  machine's  only  value  old  iron.  After 
frantic  efforts  all  day  had  not  got  over  200  readable  papers  off 
her.  Bramwell  wrote  Cooke  to  say  she  would  not  print  and 
recommended  them  at  once  to  send  their  man  to  see  her,  and 
everybody  gave  her  up.  I  could  not  see  this  myself.  On 
Saturday  morning  I  felt  bad  enough  about  her,  but  now  it 
simply  seemed  to  me  a  question  of  pozver  in  the  engine  and 
detail  in  the  machine,  and  I  think  it  will  prove  so.  She  is  now 
printing  i  ,400  per  hour  very  fairly  I  hear  —  last  night  she  did 
two  and  tore  up  3,  and  2  more  and  then  stopped! 

Six  days  later  he  writes  to  the  same  correspondent: 

...  I  can  do  little  here  but  see  people  and  advise  and  get 
snatches  of  time  for  The  War  Cry.  You  can  form  no  idea  of 
the  endless  difficulties  of  this  paper  —  that  is,  of  the  first  issue. 
I  never  want  to  see  such  a  week  again  as  last  over  such  a  sub- 
ordinate matter.  It  may  not  prove  a  subordinate  matter,  but 
I  hear  little  about  it  at  present  to  make  me  think  any  one  else 
attaches  much  importance  to  it. 

But  real  trouble  for  the  Salvation  Army  began  next 
year,  and  sprang  from  the  opposition  of  certain  leaders  of 
the  Church  as  well  as  the  enmity  of  the  mob.  The  first 
note  of  definite  oppugnance  was  sounded  bv  the  Bishop  of 
Carlisle  (Dr.  Goodwin),  who  preached,  in  October,  1880,  a 
powerful  but  somewhat  ill-natured  sermon  of  uncompro- 
mising condemnation  on  the  subject  of  Army  tactics.     In 


XXIX]  HOSTILITY  AND  OPPOSITION  443 

a  letter  to   Mr.   Henry   Reed,  written   from   Keswick,  the 
General  refers  to  this  attack : 

I  have  been  very  poorly  since  we  came,  my  old  enemy,  the 
slow  ague-fever,  having  been  on  me  for  a  fortnight.  All 
through  the  meetings  I  spoke  with  a  mouth  so  ulcerated  that 
every  movement  of  the  tongue  gave  pain,  and  the  last  three 
days  I  have  hardly  stood  on  my  feet.  I  am  however  a  little 
better  to-day  and  hope  soon  to  be  myself  again. 

The  Lord  Bishop  of  Carlisle  preached  against  us  on  Sunday 
morning  last,  in  the  Cathedral  there,  from  i  Cor.  xiv.  t,^  and 
34.  He  founded  on  the  newspaper  reports  of  our  proceedings 
during  the  last  week  and  pitched  into  us  pretty  straight.  I 
propose  that  Mrs.  Booth  answers  the  Sermon  next  week.  Not 
to  scold  him,  but  to  defend  and  explain.  It  will  make  us 
friends.^ 

But  these  attacks  do  not  hurt  us.  They  do  not  affect  us 
even  where  it  might  be  expected.  I  have  just  met  in  the  street 
the  Curate  of  this  place,  who  knew  me,  having  been  at  our 
Holiness  Meetings  at  Whitechapel ;  in  conversation  he  said 
how  much  the  Rector  here.  Canon  Battersby.  would  like  to 
see  me,  for  he  had  heard  him  the  other  night  defending  us  to 
some  clergymen  who  had  taken  up  the  attack  of  the  Bishop. 

More  serious  than  episcopal  condemnations  was  the  dis- 
position of  the  mob;  and  more  serious  than  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  mob  was  the  attitude  of  the  police  towards  these 
law-breakers.  Towards  the  end  of  1880  disturbances  were 
a  common  occurrence,  and  early  in  1881  the  General  was 
obliged  to  make  a  vigorous  protest  to  the  Metropolitan 
police  authorities : 

March  i6.  1881. 

Sir  —  Mr.  Morley  ^  has  shown  us  your  letter  of  the  26th 
January,  and  we  had  already  discontinued  the  use  of  instru- 
ments in  the  open-air  meetings  in  London,  according  to  your 
previous  request  sent  direct  to  me. 

I  very  much  regret  to  say  that  although  there  has  been  con- 
siderable improvement  in  nearly  all  our  stations  since  Christ- 
mas on  account  cF  the  changed  attitude  of  the  police,  now 
matters  are  getting  v.orse  again. 

>•  Mrs.  Bootb's  answer  was  a  very  clever  and  even  brilliant  effort, 
full  of  good  liinnonr,  and  onl}-  occasionally  marred  by  inappropriate 
satire.  She  lectured  to  an  immense  audience  in  Carlisle,  and  her 
address  was  printed  and  circulated  far  and  wide,  making  many  new 
friends  for  the  .A^rmy. 

-Lord  Mnrlcv.  then  editor  of  The  Pall  Moll  Gazette. 


444  THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH        [chap. 

The  gangs  of  roughs  referred  to  in  my  memorandum  dated 
December  the  22nd  are  now  again  allowed  to  congregate. 
Here,  for  instance,  the  last  two  evenings  there  have  been  the 
most  disgraceful  scenes,  windows  have  been  broken  and  the 
meetings  upset. 

P.C.  127  H.  used  the  most  disgusting  language  here  on 
Wednesday  night,  and  of  this  I  complained  to  the  superin- 
tendent, Arnold ;  as  however  he  did  not  take  any  steps  to  pre- 
vent a  repetition  of  the  same  thing  last  night,  I  am  compelled 
to  write  you. 

In  view  of  the  communications  which  have  already  passed 
both  directly  and  indirectly  between  us,  I  suggest  that  you 
make  an  appointment  to  see  me.  I  think  that  an  interview 
might  result  in  arranging  for  a  course  which  would  be  mu- 
tually satisfactory,  as  I  feel  quite  sure  that  we  both  have  in 
a  great  measure  the  same  end  in  view.  Could  you  see  me 
to-day? — Yours  faithfully,  William  Booth. 

Colonel  Sir  E.  Henderson, 
Whitehall. 

Later  in  the  year,  the  General  telegraphs  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone and  addresses  an  indignant  letter  to  the  Home 
Secretary : 

12/10/1881. 

From  William  Booth,  To  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone, 

loi  Queen  Victoria  Street,  Downing  Street, 

London,  E.G.  London. 

Unless  something  is  done  immediately  to  neutralize  the  ef- 
fect of  the  Home  Secretary's  letter  to  Stamford,  which  is 
already  the  war-cry  of  the  roughs  everywhere,  there  will  be 
riot  and  bloodshed  all  over  the  land.  I  am  sure  you  would  not 
willingly  assist  in  inflicting  suffering  on  men  and  women  who 
will  not  defend  themselves.  Beg  you  read  letter  which  I  send 
by  hand  or  command  me  to  an  interview. 

To  the  Home  Secretary  he  wrote  as  follows  on  the  loth 
October,  1881 : 

Sir  —  I  observe  with  some  surprise  that  you  have  written  to 
the  Mayor  of  Stamford  in  reply  to  some  communication  from 
him  with  reference  to  the  Salvation  Army  in  that  town. 

I  beg  to  inform  you  that  no  one  connected  with  this  Army 
has  ever  yet  been  sent  to  Stamford.  The  Salvation  Army  is 
not  in  Stamford. 

But  this  incident  affords  me  a  sufficient  opportunity  to  point 
out  to  you  the  real  cause  of  all  the  disturbances  that  are  com- 
plained of.  There  is  no  town  in  this  country  where  any  con- 
siderable number  of  ratepayers  would  approve  of  any  inter- 


XXIX]  HOSTILITY  AND  OPPOSITION  445 

ference  with  our  processions  were  it  not  for  the  violence  used 
against  us  and  consequent  breach  of  the  pubHc  peace. 

And  from  whom  comes  that  violence?  Very  rarely  indeed 
from  any  but  roughs  or  corner-men  who  would  not  dare  to 
touch  us  were  there  not  conveyed  to  them  first  of  all  an  assur- 
ance that  they  may  do  as  they  like  to  us  with  impunity. 
There  has  never  been  a  breach  of  the  peace  where  the  authori- 
ties have  made  it  plainly  understood  that  assault  upon  us  will 
be  treated  as  assaults  upon  any  other  people. 

Those  who  are  on  the  watch  for  an  opportunity  to  gratify 
their  tastes  for  violence  are  never  slow  to  observe  the  attitude 
of  authorities,  even  of  individual  policemen,  and  such  procla- 
mations as  we  suggest  or  any  intimations  of  opposition  to  our 
movements  which  comes  from  the  Bench,  the  Police-station, 
or  even  the  lips  of  any  Constable,  are  sure  to  be  followed  by 
breaches  of  the  peace  no  matter  whether  we  march  in  pro- 
cession or  not. 

But  it  is  upon  the  lives  and  property  and  persons  in  no  way 
connected  with  the  Army  that  the  full  force  of  mobs  thus  en- 
couraged will  sooner  or  later  vent  itself.  Let  the  story  of 
Basingstoke  indicate  what  may  be  expected  within  a  few  weeks 
of  the  authorities'  interference  with  our  liberties ;  convicts  are 
brought  home  from  Winchester  in  a  carriage,  feasted  in  the 
Corn  Exchange,  and  Magistrates'  houses  attacked.  ... 

Who  will  be  most  affected  by  all  this?  Certainly  not  the 
Salvation  Army,  which  I  am  happy  to  say  has  only  gained 
more  wherever  this  lawless  spirit  has  been  encouraged  against 
them. 

Our  women  as  well  as  our  men  are  able  and  willing  to  bear 
without  retaliation  all  the  stoning,  pushing,  beating,  kicking,  or 
other  force  that  may  be  used  against  them  with  or  without  your 
advice.  We  have  a  stronger  force  than  the  authorities  of  any 
town  can  ever  be  able  to  bring  against  us,  and  sooner  or  later 
the  force  of  public  opinion  will  visit  well-merited  chastisement, 
a  notorious  fact,  admitted  by  the  Police  in  many  localities  as 
well  as  by  Clergymen  of  all  denominations  that  we  are  gather- 
ing together  great  congregations  of  such  persons,  and  that  the 
lives  of  very  many  are  consequently  being  reformed.  It  is  not 
against  a  Society  which  is  labouring,  and  labouring  success- 
fully and  self-sacrificingly,  to  benefit  the  criminal  classes  that 
local  authorities  should  be  directed  how  best  to  employ  "  force." 
—  Yours  faithfully, 

(Signed)  William  Booth. 

The  Mayor  of  Basingstoke,  a  brewer,  professed  himself 
unable  to  protect  the  Salvation  Army  in  that  town  from  the 
attacks  of  a  mob  organized  and  intoxicated,  it  is  alleged, 


446     THE  LIFE  OF  GENERAL  BOOTH     [chap.xxix] 

by  the  local  publicans.  It  needed  a  reprimand  from  the 
Home  Secretary,  Sir  William  Harcourt,  to  bring  the 
authorities  to  their  senses. 

"  Skeleton  Armies,"  as  they  were  called,  sprang  up  in 
various  towns  and  set  themselves  to  break  up  the  proces- 
sions of  the  Salvation  Army.  Disturbances  of  this  kind 
became  frequent  and  serious,  and  in  Weston-super-Mare  a 
Salvationist  was  sentenced  to  three  months'  imprisonment 
for  causing  a  riot  —  a  sentence  subsequently  quashed  in  the 
Court  of  Queen's  Bench. 

But  the  country  was  stirred,  and  the  Salvation  Army  — 
attacking  the  Drink  Question  and  rescuing  men  and  women 
from  the  ruin  of  the  tavern  —  incurred  everywhere  the 
wrath  of  the  brewing  industry.  Riots  and  disturbances  of 
a  violent  kind  were  inevitable. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  in  1881.  On  the  one  side 
was  a  cold  and  critical  condemnation  by  certain  religious 
people;  on  the  other,  a  brutal  disposition  of  something 
more  than  horse-play  in  the  degenerate  mob  of  cities  and 
towns.  But  more  trying  things  than  these  were  to  befall 
the  Salvation  Army  in  the  coming  years. 


END  OF   VOL.    I 


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